A must have side dish for any roast meal; fluffy parsnip mash rolled around cubes of stringy mozzarella.
Mozzarella Parsnip Balls
Chilling time required
Instructions
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Peel and chop the parsnips into evenly sized pieces. Bring to the boil in salted water. Drain well and mash in a food processor.
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Return the mashed parsnip to the pan and mix with the cheese, butter, egg yolk and plain flour. Cook over medium heat for 2 minutes. Add salt, pepper, spring onion and parsley. Refrigerate for about 4 hours or until cold.
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With floured hands, roll heaped tablespoons of mixture into balls and push a cube of mozzarella into the middle. Roll and lightly coat in flour, egg white and panko crumbs.
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Deep fry in oil 160°C/320°F for 4 minutes until crip and golden. Drain on absorbent paper. Serve immediately or cool and freeze.
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Thaw completely before reheating and heat in 180°C/350°F oven for about 20 minutes or until warmed through.
Note
This mixture is very wet and sticky. If you drop it into the flour to coat it is easier to mould into a ball.
Rice bran oil is a good choice of oil to use when frying, so the panko crumbs don’t burn .
User Reviews
These are absolutely amazing! We had them when out for a meal and they were served quite large, I guess 2 tbsp of parsnip per ball. I’ve made them to try since and half the recipe made 16 balls, 1 tbsp per ball, they ended up golf ball size. Whatever size they end up, they’re delicious. Just adjust cooking time. I don’t have a deep fat fryer so deep fried them on the stove. I’m sure they’d work fine if you reheated them in the oven or air fryer before serving and I’ll try this next time as I definitely want to make them again; we all loved them even though we don’t all love parsnip!
I made these yesterday, after peeling and topping and tailing parsnips, I only had 750g
so I adjusted the recipe accordingly 75% of 30 is approx 22/23 balls
the instructions say to take a heaped tablespoon, and rolls into ball, but I’m sure this is incorrect and should be heaped teaspoonful
Having made about 10 rather large balls, I realised I wdnt have enough mixture to produce the at least 18 I required, so I pinched a bit off the ones I’d made and made them all smaller I managed to make 19
Can the recipe be altered to read heaped teaspoon please
They look very nice, although we havent used them yet, I still think they are quite big and will make them smaller next time:)
Has anyone tried using a different cheese from mozzarella? Would it work?
Are they su cessfull airfryed instead of deep fried?
I think this would work, although it hasn’t been tested in our Test Kitchen. Perhaps someone else has done this?
So delicious!!!
Thanks for sharing this recipe it ticks all the boxes.
These are so easy to make and taste amazing!
These are very easy to make and taste great.
Wow this is a great recipe, and a very handy thing to have in the freezer! The 2 stages makes it easy when cooking with little ones around and needing to split your time up. Made these several times now and have always turned out fine
thanks – I actually made them gf with cornflour if that is of interest. They were very successful & very nice – even if out of my comfort zone somewhat!
can these parsnip balls be served after deep frying or do they have to be frozen and re-heated?
Yes these can certainly be served immmediatly. This recipe is part of a series of ‘Family Freezer’ recipes where the instructions were geared up to easy make-ahead entertaining. I have adjusted the instructions to include that they can be served immediately to save any confusion. They are very delicious even after freezing!
Delicious, sprinkle lightly with salt when they come out of deep fryer for added flavour. Good structure too, they didn’t fall apart when frying.
Can these be frozen once made into balls without having been deep fried, and deep fry when out of freezer when you want to use, please?
I think this would work well, although haven’t tried myself. Be interested how you get on. They make take a little longer to brown up if cooked from frozen.
I re-tested these and made them golf ball size, which is roughly 1 tbsp of mixture. It made 44 balls. I wouldn’t want to make them any smaller because of inserting the cheese cubes.
Thank you for your feedback. Not only have I made these many times, but also judging by the positive feedback below I am hesitant to actually change the recipe. I always do a good tablespoon of the mixture, otherwise it is not easy to insert the cube of mozzarella. I will get them retested again and see where we go from there.