Which is sometimes one and the same.

In an attempt to ward off the gluten cravings, I yet again dove into the fried food family. Won’t you follow me there? The fact is, I’ll never be able to eat anything deep-fried again when I’m outside of my own home. Not at least until someone finally opens a gluten-free deep-fried food truck. Which you know, could totally happen.

So when I set out to cover something in crust and oil and cook it until it’s crispy on the outside and gooey on the inside, I try not to feel too horribly guilty. It helps that I started with a recipe from the Artisanal Gluten-Free Cooking cookbook. Of course I ghetto’d up their recipe and adapted it by skipping their flour mixture — which is divine — and instead grabbing a box of all-purpose gluten-free flour. Hey, if I’m going for Super Bowl food, I might as well keep it WT. It turns out, it’s actually pretty simple to make these sticks that I used to think only existed in bar and grills.

It appears the trick is rubbing those babies in your flour mixture, then the egg wash, then the bread crumbs. Otherwise I’m guessing you get a mess of melted cheese everywhere. The triple roll really did the trick. The Italian seasonings also added a whole other level of flavor, especially since my daughter accidentally dumped an entire jar of dried basil into all three mixtures. So my sticks were basil-rific. 

Gluten-Free Mozzarella Sticks

adapted from Artisanal Gluten-Free Cooking

Prep time: 10 minutes Cook time: 5 minutes

Ingredients:

1 lb mozzarella (not fresh), cut into sticks
2 cups gluten-free flour
2 cups gluten-free breadcrumbs
1 egg
2 tablespoons water
Dried oregano
Dried basil
Salt & pepper
1/4 cup high heat oil (I used safflower)

1. Use three shallow bowls for your flour, breadcrumb, and egg wash. Pour flour into one bowl and season with dried oregano, basil, salt and pepper. Do the same with the bread crumbs. Whisk egg with water, and season with the same.

2. After you have cut mozzarella into sticks, roll each stick in flour mixture first, followed by the egg wash, and finish up with the bread crumb mixture.

3. Heat 1/4 cup oil in deep frying pan on medium high heat. Turn down to medium, and place sticks in hot oil. Cook for 3-5 minutes, flipping over to brown evenly.

4. Remove from oil and place on a paper towel to soak oil. Serve with your favorite dipping sauce, or just chow down.

Makes: 5 servings