How not to batter and bake cheese curds

So one of the best things about visiting Wisconsin was the massive amount of cheese curds we consumed. And not just the fresh and squeaky ones – I’m talking battered and fried ones that were delightfully gooey in the middle. We came back with a decent supply of curds, and I decided it was high time I did something with some of them.

For the batter, I initially whisked together just some egg and milk, with the intention of rolling the curds in that, and then tossing them in panko crumbs. However, I had visions of the curds melting all over the place, so I also whisked in some flour for extra stiffness.

As I was baking some biscuits (of the standard Bisquick variety) I decided I’d also go ahead and bake the cheese curds. Heathwise, I figured not deep frying them in oil would balance out the fact that I’d be eating a metric ton of melted cheese.

So I rolled them around in the batter, and tossed them in the crumbs. A few of them were looking a bit thin, so I gave those little guys a second go in the batter and crumbs.

In hindsight, I probably should have done that to all of them.

Horrible photo, I was lightheaded and wobbly from the tragedy of my cheese curds being a burbley layer of melted cheese on that pan.

In hindsight, I really needed a thicker batter. This batter works quite well on catfish. However, catfish aren’t the sort to melt all over the pan. (And if yours does, I recommend not buying that fish again!)

Also, frying. Deep frying, even! These curds had about 10 minutes to melt all over that pan while in the oven. Deep frying would have left them a few minutes at most to do damage, and the flash of heat might have seared up any holes that the batter didn’t cover.

Course, we still ate it all. What we could get off of the pan, that is. I mean, cheese is cheese. And I enjoyed it, too! But, never again, not this method at least. Luckily, we still have a giant bag of curds left in the freezer, and next time I’ll look up a proper batter recipe and deep fry them, as I probably should have done in the first place!