Mozzarella in Carozza – Nigella Lawson

My great friend Ginny visited this weekend and we planned a quiet weekend at the house with looks of cooking, drinking, and movie watching, and for once, we succeeded in accomplishing pretty much everything we set out to do! Icluding finishing off several bottles of wine, some of the new Bud Light Golden Wheat beer, and a Bloody Mary or three....

Since we spent the majority of the weekend cooking, I have TONS of food to post. I’m going to spread it out rather than inundate you with hanger pangs, so I’m going to post one recipe at a time, beginning, well...at the beginning!

First thing when Ginny got to my house, we were hungry. One of the recipes on our to-do list was Nigella Lawson’s Mozzarella in Carozza. I haven’t officially signed up to be part of the I Heart Cooking Clubs group, but I’ve been watching them, and right now they are focusing on Nigella’s recipes. Recently, the theme was Comfort Food, and since there is very little that I find as comforting as bread and cheese (and anything fried), I decided to go with these tasty little cheese sandwiches. Easy as you please to make, and really quick for when you need sustenance in a hurry.

I have to say, I’ve never been a huge fan of Nigella’s show, but I think that was because I had never read one of her cookbooks before. This woman is hysterical. She seems to share a sense of humor that Ginny and I have been perfecting for years. She seems to get a quip in on just about every recipe that speaks straight to my foodie sensibilities. When I caught the last line of this recipe, all I could do was laugh.

***notes: this little sammies were a perfect Friday night snack. Quick and easy, then crunchy on the outside and melty on the inside, we served them with a dab of Vidalia onion mustard that I picked up at the orchard last weekend, and it really put it over the top. When Nigella says to dip the sandwiches briefly in the milk, she means it. If they soak too long, the inside of the bread becomes too spongy, but that didn’t keep us from eating them!

Ingredients:
6 slices white bread, crusts removed
1 fist sized ball fresh mozzarella, cut into 1/4 inch slices, then strips
1/2 cup whole milk
3 heaping tablespoons all purpose flour (I used whole wheat flour, because it was open)
1 Egg

salt & pepper

olive oil (not extra virgin) for frying

Make sandwiches out of the bread and mozzarella, leaving a little margin around the edges unfilled with cheese, and press the edges together with your fingers to help seal.Pour the milk into one bowl, the flour into another, beat the egg with salt & pepper and put it in a third bowl. Warm the oil in a frying pan over medium heat. Dunk the sandwiches briefly, one by one, first in the milk, then the flour, then the egg. Fry in the hot oil on each side until crisp and golden and remove to a paper towel. Cut in half and apply to face.