Arancini
Saffron rice cooked the day before, moulded round a filling and fried.
Beef, Egg. Not vegetarian — contains beef, chicken stock, mozzarella whose rennet the source does not name, parmesan whose rennet the source does not name.
Ingredients
Rice
- 400 g arborio or carnaroli rice
- 1.2 litres hot chicken stock
- a large pinch of saffron
- 50 g butter
- 60 g parmesan, grated
- 1 teaspoon salt
Filling
- 200 g thick beef ragù, cold
- 100 g mozzarella, in small cubes
- 60 g frozen peas, cooked
To fry
- 2 eggs, beaten
- 150 g fine breadcrumbs
- 1 litre sunflower oil, for deep frying, which is poured off
Method
- Steep the saffron in a ladle of the hot stock for 10 minutes.
- Cook the rice as a risotto, adding the stock a ladle at a time, with the saffron stock going in halfway. Finish with the butter and parmesan and season.
- Spread it on a tray and refrigerate OVERNIGHT. This is the step everything else depends on: warm risotto will not hold a shape and the arancini burst in the oil. Cold rice moulds like clay.
- Wet your hands. Take a handful of rice, flatten it, put a teaspoon of ragù, a cube of mozzarella and a few peas in the middle, and close the rice over, rolling it into a ball or a cone.
- Make sure no filling shows through anywhere. A gap is where the oil gets in and the cheese gets out.
- Roll each in beaten egg and then breadcrumbs, pressing them on. Chill them another 30 minutes.
- Heat the oil to 175C and fry three or four at a time for 4 minutes, turning, until deep gold. Drain on a rack and pour the cooled oil off afterwards.
- Rest them 5 minutes before eating. The cheese inside is far hotter than the crust suggests.
Our own recipe. This one was written for this site rather than taken from anywhere, so there is no source to point you at. The quantities and the order of the steps are choices, not the only way to do it.
Filed under Italy · All recipes