Mozzarella in Carrozza with a touch of Margherita

About a year back I went nuts for cheese. I wanted to buy a couple of variety and I wanted to buy good quality at affordable price. When I found affordable cheese, its quality was mere average. And when I found cheese with good quality, it was imported and hence really expensive. No where I was able to strike a balance between quality and price.

My desperation reached its peak when I actually started asking restaurant owners as to where they are buying their cheese from. Imagine this, instead of complimenting them on a dish I am asking, ‘Could you please let me know where you bought your parmigiano reggiano from?’ Such bad phase, seriously! A friend of mine started calling me mouse.

But it was this same desperation that brought with itself a silver lining. A restaurant owner actually shared with me the contact details of his cheese provider.

And that’s how I ended by buying about 1.5 kg (3 pounds) of cheese! In that stack, I also landed on this really nice mozzarella – smooth, buttery, absolutely heavenly. It wasn’t fresh, but it was delectable.

So it was only obvious that for a while I made only mozzarella preparations for our weekend breakfasts and dinners and this is one of such preparations.

Mozzarella in Carrozza is ‘mozzarella in a carriage.’ Slices of mozzarella are sandwiched between bread slices , dunked in eggs and fried. Essentially this breakfast recipe is supposed to have just the cheese between bread slices. But my recipe has a panino alla margherita kind of twist to it. Along with cheese I also add tomatoes and basil! Let’s get started.

Mozzarella in Carrozza

Serving Size

Makes 3 sandwiches

You Would Need

6 slices of bread (preferably crust removed)

About 150 gm (5 oz) of good-quality mozzarella (don’t fret too much on weighting the cheese, you need enough to put 1/2 cm slices between breads)

1 large (or 2 small tomatoes) – sliced

Fresh basil – chopped

1/2 cup milk

3 tbps all-purpose flour

1 large egg

Salt and pepper to taste

Preferably butter (or else olive oil) for frying

How to Go About It

Prepare sandwich out of bread, cheese slices, tomato slices and basil. Leave the margin around the edges of the bread empty.

 Press the edges of the sandwich with your fingers to as to gently seal the sandwich.

Beat the egg with salt and pepper.

Take three quarter plates. Pour milk into one, flour into another. In the third one, pour beaten egg.

 Warm butter (or oil) in a frying pan over medium heat.

Side-by-side, dip one of the sandwiches briefly in milk (1 second each side). Quickly pat it in flour plate (about 1 second each side). Finally dunk in egg (again about 1 second each side).

Fry it in butter (or oil) on one side. In less than a minute, the fried side will look crisp and golden in color. Flip the sandwich to crisp the other side as well.

Cut it in half to serve.

Look at the cheese oozing out,

Mozzarella is the heart of this sandwich. The entire flavor of the sandwich is based on this cheese. Therefore making a delicious Mozzarella in Carrozza won’t be possible unless you are using good quality mozzarella.

And once you do, you will be treating yourself to the best stringy, gooey goodness that you would ever have enjoyed.