Another recipe from Nick DiGiovanni’s cookbook Knife Drop. I first heard about him on Good Morning America (GMA) where new and old chef’s are guests, often with a new cookbook to promote. I not only enjoy my old standby chefs but like to learn about who and what is new in the food world.
Cheesy little bites!
I almost didn’t post this as I wasn’t totally happy with the results. First, I made his browned butter where he added a little dry milk to enhance the flavor. I didn’t care for the texture and didn’t keep it – maybe I could have salvaged it, but I made my own version of browned butter. Tapioca flour is not one I am familiar with and is not the same as AP flour and reacted differently. Hot water/milk/browned butter mixture was added to the dough and ended up being in crumbles. It did smooth out with the addition of eggs and cheese, but was too liquidy. I ended up adding too much tapioca and the rolls were tough, very tasty, but too hard on the outside. Gene would have loved them as he liked hard crusted bread with a soft center.
By the way under his soup category Nick wrote “while it has a time and place soup lacks texture and excitement.” So, there are no recipes – I mean who doesn’t like soup???
I decided not to be too critical of the author. On a beautiful Michigan day I sat outside and went through his cookbook more thoroughly paying attention to the comments before each recipe. I found out that in college one of his food science courses referenced America’s Test Kitchen which often utilizes simple scientific practices. I can see where he gets some of his inspiration. Nick likes to take ordinary recipes and make them extraordinary!
He’s a young chef with a lot of potential and certainly has the credentials behind him – Gordon Ramsey gave the forward to this cookbook – forget the rules – just cook!
He does have many tasty recipes so will not give up on this chef. Maybe it’s just a generation gap between us; he is only 27 and I am ? I am open to creative twists and look forward to trying them!
Brazilian Cheese Balls
- unsalted butter for greasing the mini muffin tins
- 1/4 cup whole milk
- 1/4 cup water
- 1/2 tsp. kosher salt
- 1/2 cup browned butter (see my recipe below – I did not like Nick’s recipe)
- 2 cups tapioca flour
- 2 large eggs
- 1/2 cup Parmigiano-Reggiano, freshly grated
- 1/4 cup mozzarella, shredded
Preheat the oven to 400 degrees. Grease a mini muffin pan with butter.
In a large pot over medium-high heat, combine the milk, water, salt and browned butter. Bring the mixture to a boil and then remove the pot from the heat.
In the bowl of a stand mixer fitted with a paddle attachment, combine the milk mixture and tapioca flour. Mix on medium speed until a sticky dough begins to form.
Add the eggs, one at a time, and mix until fully incorporated. Add the cheese and mix until well combined. The dough should be slightly sticky. Using a rounded tablespoon spoon the dough into the prepared muffin pan, dividing it evenly among the wells.
Bake for 15-20 minutes or until the cheese balls puff up to the size of golf balls and become golden brown. Do not overcook! Serve immediately.
Browned Butter:
- 1 cup (2 sticks) unsalted butter equals 3/4 cup browned butter (only 1/2 cup is needed for this recipe) – slicing it into pieces will help it melt faster
Place the butter in a heavy medium sized saucepan. Bring the butter to a boil, stirring frequently and as it cooks a white foam will form on top. This is the butter’s water content boiling off. The foam will gradually thin, brown specs will appear on the bottom of the saucepan and it should have a nutty aroma.
Pour into a bowl to stop the cooking and continue to stir. Be careful as it is very easy to go from browned butter to burnt butter.
Use immediately or store, covered in the refrigerator for up to 1 week.
Recipe by cookingwithauntjuju.com
The ingredients…
The butter is foaming and turning a nice golden color…
1 cup butter equals 3/4 cup browned butter…
Prior to baking…
Thanks for the candied report on this recipe. Sometimes we learn from not so great ones as well.
I recall making a version of this Brazilian bread long ago. It was quite straight forward and I don’t recall it had brown butter in it. Guess there are many versions. 🙂
I agree Ronit – that’s one reason I chose to post this recipe, not just for others but as a reminder to myself. I will have to work with tapioca flour again as all the Brazilian cheese ball recipes use tapioca flour. Nick uses browned butter in many of his recipes – I just didn’t care for the dry milk addition 🙂
I can relate to that. I often use brown butter, and can’t see how dry milk can add much to it… 🙂
I just looked up using dry milk powder and it is apparently quite popular now with bakers; I found articles in Bon Apetit and King Arthur Baking praising the benefits of using it. I plan to add a comment to my post about it once I read all the info I collected so I understand – I should have done this before making the recipe. There are a lot of tricks out there that are just waiting to be explored and this is one of them. I am going to try this again… 🙂 Thanks for commenting as always Ronit…
I can see how dry milk can add to pastries (I often use malted milk powder for cookies), but not when it is added to brown butter. But I’m always open to new ideas and ingredients. 🙂
mm that’s interesting using dried milk powder. Not something i have in my pantry at all 🙂 Nor tapioca flour for that matter. Just wondering? – do you rewrite recipes out of cookbooks? I’ve had some nasty comments from an anonymous person telling me i have breached copyright by using a recipe from a cookbook. I have checked aussie copyright rules before and as long as you rewrite the prose, it is okay. Not sure about american copyright tho hubby reckons it’s the same. It was a bit of a worry getting nasty comments:( Sorry to dump this on you, and i’m not suggesting anything bad about your post at all!! Just feeling worried.
Thanks Sherry – yes I always seem to change a recipe as I use less salt and lower fat products if I can and other reasons. I also rewrite the recipe to some extent. Of course I always give credit to the author when possible and name the source. Knock on wood I have over 1400 posts and so far no problem. I have seen recipes from two chefs and they are the same or even cookbooks – so who is the true author? Thanks for your comment 🙂 Tapioca flour is not a favorite but I want to try it again… Dried milk powder is an ingredient I use occasionally. I found it very interesting that this is used to enhance browned butter. I am looking into it…
We recently were gifted dinner for two for a 21-course (about a tablespoon per course) tasting which was conducted by a new young Scandinavian chef. We found it odd and not to our tastes. So, I agree about the generation gap.
Thanks for your honest assessment of the recipe…
What I do like about the new generation is their willingness to experiment and do something different or what is more trendy. I learn a lot and can appreciate new ideas – may not like them but at least I tried 🙂 21 course tasting, that is a shame if you didn’t care for the chefs choices. I am going to experiment with adding the dry milk powder to browned butter because it is very popular with bakers and chefs alike.
How in the world did he mess up browning butter?! So strange. But the muffins/bread look good.
Nick didn’t screw up – I did! Apparently, it is quite common with chefs/bakers to enhance the flavor of browned butter by adding milk powder to it. I got impatient with the results and made it my way without the milk powder. I plan to try again after doing some research as King Arthur Baking and Bon Apetit do this. You need to read my entire post and the comments to help you understand what happened 🙂