Easy to prepare tasty recipe of cheese balls made with potatoes, gram flour and cheese. This popular snack is vegetarian and gluten free, making it the perfect appetizer to share.
Boil potatoes in a steamer or pressure cooker or an electric cooker. Boil the potatoes till they are completely cooked. You can even steam the potatoes in an Instant Pot for 7 to 8 minutes.
When the potatoes become warm, peel them and mash very well in a mixing bowl. Allow the potatoes to come at room temperature before you add the remaining ingredients.
Grate 60 grams cheese and keep aside. In cup measurement, the amount is ½ cup tightly packed grated cheese.
You can use either cheddar cheese or processed cheese. If using amul processed cheese, then use 3 cubes.
Making cheese ball mixture
To the mashed potatoes, add black pepper, crushed or black pepper powder, cumin powder, a pinch of garam masala (optional) and chopped coriander leaves or parsley leaves.
Add gram flour (besan). You can also add all purpose flour or cornstarch (corn flour).
Mix very well.
Then add the grated cheese and two pinches of black salt. Add salt accordingly as cheese already has salt. You can even add rock salt or regular salt instead of black salt.
Mix the cheese with the rest of the potato mixture very well. Check the taste and add more salt or crushed black pepper if required.
Make small balls from the mixture and make one tiny ball to test while frying.
Frying cheese balls
Heat oil for deep frying in a kadai or pan.
When the oil becomes hot, add the tiny cheese ball. The temperature of oil can be from 180 to 190 degrees celsius.
The oil has to be hot, otherwise the cheese balls may break.
When the tiny cheese ball, does not break, then you can easily fry the other balls. If it breaks, then you have to add 1 to 2 tablespoons gram flour or chickpea flour to the mixture again. Keep the same temperature while frying by increasing or decreasing the heat.
Add the remaining potato cheese balls.
With a slotted spoon, turn over when the balls get to become golden.
Fry them till they are evenly golden all over and crisp.
Once fried well, place them on kitchen paper towels to remove excess oil
Serve hot with tomato ketchup or coriander chutney or mint chutney or any dip of your choice. For best taste serve them hot as soon as they are prepared.
Video
Notes
Scaling: The recipe can be doubled or tripled.
Stickiness: The potato has to be drained very well. Even some moisture or water in the potatoes will make the mixture sticky.
Binding: Instead of gram flour, you can add 3 to 4 tablespoons of all-purpose flour, chickpea flour, cornstarch (cornflour) or arrowroot flour. If while frying, the balls break, then add 1 to 3 tablespoons more of the binding ingredient as required.
Frying: Fry at temperatures of 180 degrees to 190 degrees celsius. The cheese balls may break when frying at lower temperature.
Spicing: As a kid friendly snack, I have kept the spices minimal. However you can increase the spices to suit your taste buds. You can also add spices and herbs like green chilies or red chili powder to make these cheese balls spicy.
Type of Cheese: For the type of cheese, you can use either cheddar cheese or processed cheese or American cheese.
Note that the approx nutrition info is one small cheese ball.