Keftedes Stuffed With Kasseri Cheese

Introduction

Kasseri is a Greek cheese made of goat's milk. It has a creamy, sweet and mild taste to it that compliments the cumin keftedes beautifully. It also melts a lot quicker then haloumi and some of the other Greek cheeses. You can however also use haloumi.

You can use beef or lamb mince meat or a combination for this dish. This dish requires stale bread. You can use ½ stale Vienna or some country style sourdough bread,


Serving Size: 4 people
Ingredients

500 grams mince meat
1 egg
1 crushed clove of garlic
1 cup spring onion finely chopped
1 cup continental parsley finely chopped
½ Vienna that is stale or ¼ of a round country style sourdough bread, stale
200 grams kasseri
4-5 teaspoons of ground cumin
Sea salt and cracked pepper
2 tablespoons extra virgin olive oil
Olive oil for frying

Method

Remove the outside crust from the bread and discard. Soak the bread in some water and squeeze it so that all the water is drained out of it. Place the bread in a large bowl. Add to it the mince meat, crushed garlic, onions, parsley, cumin, olive oil, egg, sea salt and cracked pepper.

Using your hands mix the ingredients in well. Cover the bowl with plastic and refrigerate for at least 2 hours. In the interim cut the kasseri cheese into very small cubes and set aside in the refrigerator.

Take some mince meat and work it a little bit. Flatten it out a bit in the palm of your hand and add a cube of kasseri, cover the kasseri and work the meat so that you form a small ball. Repeat this process until you have used up all the meat mixture. In between each one dip your hand in water so that the meat does not stick on your hands and you can roll it easier.

In a frying pan add about 1.5 cm of olive oil and heat this up. On medium heat lightly fry the keftedes until they are golden brown and place in a dish with some draining paper to drain the excess oil. Once you have finished frying them place them in an oven at 150 C for approximately 5 minutes. Serve them while still hot.

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