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Sarah Thompson posted an update
Qifqi (special to Gjirokaster, Albania)
I ate these on my culinary tour last summer and have been wanting to try them for a while. These rice balls are flavoured with mint and are usually only found in Gjirokaster, in the southern, more vegetarian half of Albania.
I used two recipes- one Albanian and one Indian. You would think the Albanian one would be more faithful, but it recommended a large quantity of cheese. I’ve never heard of cheese being used, so I think this was a family recipe for rice balls – nice, but not qifqi, as the cheese fries hard and also overpowers the rice and mint.
The Indian lady’s recipe was much more like what I had in Albznia, but I think she made some mistakes. The recipe said 4 (!) eggs to one cup of rice. I used two eggs in 1 1/2 cups of rice and it was swimming in egg! I had to add a cup of flour (not mentioned) to make it stick.
I think I overfried them because I was worried the rice wouldn’t heat through. The cheese balls were a fine snack, but next time I’ll use the second recipe for sure, minus that egg!
