They can be dressed up with fancy cheeses on the inside or swanky breading on the outside but really, cheese sticks are just chunks of cheese rolled in a coating and fried till heavenly delicious - and man are they ever. These are your standard mozzarella sticks, modified ever so slightly from a recipe that used Panko. Deeee-lish.
*Instead of using Panko bread crumbs, I used the mix I always do, which is just plain bread crumbs seasoned with a steak spice mix
First I mixed the bread crumbs with the parsley, salt, pepper and garlic. Then I cut all of the cheese strings in thirds (even though the original recipe says halves). I whisked the egg and the milk together in a secind bowl and put the 1/2 cup of flour into a third bowl.
Roll a cheese piece around in the flour.
Then dunk it in the egg and make sure it's all coated.
Now pop it in the bread crumb mixture!
I made these to celebrate my dear friends Andrew and Talea, whose birthdays are a week apart. I was taking them on a two hour drive that weekend and planned to make them once I got there, so I froze them and they worked out so well!
So pretty!! They were a little less pretty once we cooked them and ate them, but they were really good. I pretty much deep fried them in canola oil in a frying pan for a few minutes each side.