Bolinha de Queijo

The bolinha de queijo belongs to the broad family of Brazilian salgados — the fried and baked savoury snacks that fill bakery counters, snack bars and party tables — and like much of that repertoire it draws on European fried-dough and croquette traditions reworked with Brazilian ingredients and the country's deep festa culture. It is a wheat-flour creation rather than one of the indigenous cassava breads, and it spread as an everyday, inexpensive party and bar snack rather than as a regional speciality, which is why it has no single home region. Its appeal rests entirely on the contrast of a crisp fried shell against a molten cheese centre, and it sits permanently on the Brazilian birthday salgado platter beside coxinha, kibe, esfiha and risole.

A small golden ball, breadcrumb-crisp on the outside, that crunches and then gives onto a soft, slightly bready dough and a hot, gooey, stringy cheese core that stretches as you pull it apart. The flavour is mild and savoury — fried dough and salty melted cheese — best in the first minute out of the fryer while the centre is still molten. Eaten by hand and in quantity at parties, often by children, and at boteco counters with an ice-cold beer. As it cools the cheese sets, so it is always served hot.

The dough is a soft wheat-flour dough — often a scalded or enriched dough with butter and egg — pliable enough to wrap fully around a cube of cheese and seal without gaps, since any opening lets the melting cheese escape into the oil. The cheese must be a good melter, such as mozzarella, so it goes liquid and stringy rather than splitting; chilling the formed balls firms the dough and keeps the cheese solid until it hits the oil, which helps it hold its shape. The egg-and-breadcrumb coat browns by the Maillard reaction and forms a barrier that crisps and protects the seal. The oil must be hot and the fry brief, just long enough to colour the shell and melt the centre.