Parmesan Broccoli Balls (a.k.a Stuffing balls) パルメザンチーズ ブロッコリー ボール

We had some blanched broccoli left over from last weekend and my wife found this recipe on line. This appealed to her since it is basically bread stuffing in ball form. It is amazingly good, although it is not dietetic. 

You can see small florets of  broccoli are embedded in the ball. I also served it with more blanched broccoli and skinned Campari tomato topped with mayo and Dijon mustard.

This was baked in the toaster oven but still developed a nice crunchy crust. Since it has a good amount of butter, even baked, it is like oven fried.

We made some adjustment to the original recipe, since we did not have garlic salt or margarine (we do not use margarine in any case). We also sautéed onion and garlic before mixing in.

Ingredients:
One head of broccoli, thick stem removed and discarded, separated into florets, blanched in salted  water and cooled (original recipe calls for frozen broccoli).
1 (6 ounce) package flavored dry stuffing mix.
1/2 cup grated Parmesan cheese (it was a bit of work to grate this much).
1 medium onion, finely chopped
5 eggs, beaten (original recipe calls for 6)
3/4 cup butter, unsalted, melted (original recipe calls for margarine)
1 teaspoon ground black pepper

One clove of garlic chopped and 1/2 teaspoon Kosher salt (original recipe calls for garlic salt)

Olive oil for cooking onion and garlic

Direction:

1. In a frying pan with olive oil, saute the onion and garlic until soft and onion is semitransparent (#2).
2. In a large bowl, mix broccoli, stuffing mix, Parmesan cheese, onion, garlic, eggs, butter, pepper, and salt (#1). 
3. Cover, and chill in the refrigerator approximately 1 hour, until moisture has been absorbed.
4. Preheat oven to 325 degrees F (165 degrees C).
5. Roll the chilled mixture into 1 inch balls, and arrange on a medium baking sheet (#3 and 4). We used a medium sized ice cream scoop to portion out.
6. Bake 15 to 20 minutes in the preheated oven, until browned.

We really like this dish. This may replace my wife's stuffing for the holiday dinners. The amount of butter, eggs and Parmesan cheese make this dish not particularly diet worthy. We wondered at the role the broccoli played in this dish but decided, although the flavor is subtle, it helps. There was too much for us to eat at once so we froze most of it. This reheated very well in the toaster oven. Having something like this to pull from the freezer as a quick hors d'oeuvre is really handy and can make a workday evening a little more special.