Featured Recipe

An Occasional Series at A Life of Food

I rarely, if ever, adhere completely to a recipe.

Even if it's my first time preparing a dish, I'll use the recipe for guidance and just fiddle about with it (within reason...and sometimes without). Not that I disdain the concept of the recipe: I love to read cookbooks before going to sleep, memorizing ratios, ingredient combinations, techniques...or for prurient titillation. The early Gordon Ramsay cookbooks -- before he dumbed them down and they were impossible for anyone but a Cordon Bleu chef to execute -- were like gustatory porn.

So speaking of obscene, and in response to several readers' requests for recipes, I offer the following bit of dreadful folly (proceed at your own risk):

Paula's Fried Butter Balls

Recipe and photo courtesy Paula Deen

• 2 sticks butter
• 2 ounces cream cheese
• Salt and pepper
• 1 cup all-purpose flour
• 1 egg, beaten
• 1 cup seasoned bread crumbs
• Peanut oil, for frying

Directions

Cream the butter, cream cheese, salt and pepper together with an electric mixer until smooth. Using a very small ice cream scoop, or melon baller, form 1-inch balls of butter mixture and arrange them on a parchment or waxed paper lined sheet pan. Freeze until solid. Coat the frozen balls in flour, egg, and then bread crumbs and freeze again until solid.

When ready to fry, preheat oil in a deep-fryer to 350 degrees F.

Fry balls for 10 to 15 seconds until just light golden. Drain on paper towels before serving.