Supplì

Cold risotto moulded round a mozzarella core and fried, so the cheese pulls into a thread.

Egg. Not vegetarian — contains mozzarella whose rennet the source does not name.

Ingredients

• 800 g cold tomato risotto, made the day before
• 200 g mozzarella, in 2 cm sticks, drained well
• 2 eggs, beaten
• 150 g fine breadcrumbs
• 50 g flour
• 1.5 litres sunflower oil, for deep frying, which is poured off
• 1 teaspoon salt

Method

1. THE RISOTTO MUST BE COLD AND A DAY OLD. Warm risotto will not hold a shape and the supplì bursts in the oil. This is a dish for leftovers and it is better for it.
2. Take a handful, flatten it on your palm, lay a stick of mozzarella in the middle, and close the rice around it completely. Shape it into a cylinder, not a ball — Rome's are oblong where Sicily's arancini are round or conical.
3. Check there is no cheese showing. A gap is where the oil gets in and the filling gets out.
4. Roll in flour, then egg, then breadcrumbs. Chill them 30 minutes so the coating sets.
5. Fry at 175C, four at a time, for 4 minutes until deep gold.
6. EAT THEM WITHIN A FEW MINUTES. The name 'al telefono' is about pulling one apart and the cheese stretching like a telephone cord — once they cool the mozzarella sets again and that stops happening.
7. Pour the oil off once cooled.

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