Tomato Balls

I have not required to make my own meal in nearly 3 years now, and the last I had to do so, it was only for a period of 4 months. I have just started trying out something out of boredom in the kitchen that is open to use on weekend, while the canteen/mess runs it on the other days.

Last week, I made tomato balls, which I watched on TV, no Carnival Eats on Nat Geo Travel (I think) in an episode that covered the Indiana State Fair.

Here is what is needed:

Tomatoes
Onions (Onion:Tomato::1:2)
Mozzarella cheese
Black Pepper
Coriander leaves
Green chillies
A few cloves of garlic, as you please.
Maida/wheat flour/corn flour (as a binder)
Bread Crumbs (even better binder)
Any spices/masala (I used jeera, chilly powder, and a pinch of chaat masala)
Salt
Oil (for frying)

Recipe:

Dice the tomatoes small, drain them. If they are pulpy, squish them a bit and drain the juice away. (If you can combine this with another dish that can use this tomato juice, it would be brilliant!) Chop the onions fine. Grate the cheese, and fill half a cup with the gratings. Add the tomatoes, onions and cheese to a bowl and add a bit of flour to the mix. Grind and add the black pepper and jeera to this. Chop green chillies, garlic and the coriander leaves and them to the bowl. Also add the spices and salt.
Mix them together, add some fine granules of bread crumbs and continue to mix until the contents can be bound into a ball. Once it is thick enough, roll them into small balls 2" or so big. If you can multitask the frying and the ball-making, that is good. Else, have all the balls made before the oil is put on heat.
On a frying pan, or fryer, have enough amount of oil to submerge the balls. Once the oil is hot enough on med/high flame, drop in the balls carefully and deep fry them. The texture on the outside becomes dark brown with the tomatoes and onions frying. Once so on all sides, take them off the stove and place them on a paper napkin to drain off excess oil. Serve hot with ketchup or mayonnaise.

I enjoyed it when I watched it on TV, and I enjoyed the customised way I had prepared it (above) too. The cheese played some magic inside, the tomatoes and onions tasted well. It went well with mayo, too! This would be a nice evening snack. Do remember: the more wet and pulpy the cut tomatoes are, the more difficult it would be to bind them together. Using more dough would bring down the taste/flavour. Also, you can go innovative on the leaf used - coriander can be replaced with mint. Spices can be chosen as per taste.

Click here for the video of the original.