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Surprise Balls
Take cold mashed potatoes, form into balls size of an egg, with spoon make cavity in each end large enough to put an oyster. Dip in beaten egg, roll in crumbs and fry in deep fat. Cold minced meat may be substituted for oyster. Serve with tartar sauce.
A leftovers dish that depends entirely on the potato holding together around a wet filling. Everything below serves that one aim.
- Seal the cavityThe hinge of the recipe: after tucking the oyster in, pinch and smooth the potato completely closed over it. Any gap lets steam and oyster liquor escape into the fat, and the ball bursts.
- Use dry, cold potatoMashed potato made with much milk or cream will slump in the fryer. Day-old mash straight from the refrigerator, stiff enough to hold a shape, is what the recipe assumes. A beaten egg yolk worked into the mash helps it bind.
- Two cavities, two oystersAs written each ball takes an oyster at each end, so a pint of small shucked oysters covers roughly a dozen balls. Drain them well and pat dry before they go in.
- Fat temperatureThe recipe says only "deep fat"; around 375F is the usual working range for this kind of frying. Lower and the crumb coat soaks; higher and the outside colours before the oyster inside is hot. Three to four minutes gives a browned shell and a just-cooked oyster.
- CrumbsFine dry breadcrumbs, not fresh, and not panko, if you want the smooth even shell of the original. Flour first, then egg, then crumbs, gives the most reliable coating on a damp surface.
- The meat substitutionCold minced meat is already cooked, so these need only to colour and heat through. Season it more than you think necessary; unseasoned mince inside potato tastes of nothing.
- Yield and servingAbout a dozen egg-sized balls from a pound and a half of mashed potato, enough for four as a supper dish with the tartar sauce and something sharp alongside.