Saturday, July 12, 2008

Arancini

Zombies don't just eat brains you know. In fact, if they had the choice, I'm quite sure they'd also go for deep fried eyeballs. Q thinks so too and give that the dead eat people parts, and the living love anything deep fried, he's asked that I make arancini for his upcoming Zombie-que. BYOF (Bring Your Own Flesh) to this three corpse meal and all that good cheesy stuff. Speaking of cheese - arancini! I love these things; in fact I had my stepmother slave away making them for my 29 1/2th birthday party.
You can make these with any kind of risotto you like; here is one option from All Recipes.

INGREDIENTS:
1 tablespoon olive oil
1 small onion, finely chopped
1 clove garlic, crushed
1 cup uncooked Arborio rice
1/2 cup dry white wine
2 1/2 cups boiling chicken
stock
1/2 cup frozen green peas
2 ounces finely chopped ham
salt and pepper to taste
1/2 cup finely grated Parmesan
cheese
1 egg, beaten
1 egg
1 tablespoon milk
4 ounces mozzarella cheese,
cut into 3/4 inch cubes
1/2 cup all-purpose flour
1 cup dry bread crumbs
1 cup vegetable oil for deep
frying

DIRECTIONS:
1. Heat the olive oil in a large saucepan over medium heat. Add onion and garlic, and cook, stirring until onion is soft but not browned. Pour in the rice, and cook stirring for 2 minutes, then stir in the wine, and continue cooking and stirring until the liquid has evaporated. Add hot chicken stock to the rice 1/3 cup at a time, stirring and cooking until the liquid has evaporated before adding more.
2. When the chicken stock has all been added, and the liquid has evaporated, stir in the peas and ham. Season with salt and pepper. Remove from the heat, and stir in the Parmesan cheese. Transfer the risotto to a bowl, and allow to cool slightly.
3. Stir the beaten egg into the risotto. In a small bowl, whisk together the remaining egg and milk with a fork. For each ball, roll 2 tablespoons of the risotto into a ball. Press a piece of the mozzarella cheese into the center, and roll to enclose. Coat lightly with flour, dip into the milk mixture, then roll in bread crumbs to coat.
4. Heat oil for frying in a deep-fryer or large deep saucepan to 350 degrees F (175 degrees C). Fry the balls in small batches until evenly golden, turning as needed. Drain on paper towels. Keep warm in a low oven while the rest are frying.

Now, so far I've made the risotto. I made it last night and put it in the fridge to make the balls today. We'll see how that goes. . . I thought I should probably form the balls last night, and then freeze or refrigerate them, but there just wasn't any room. Besides, this dish was created as a way to use leftover risotto, I see no reason why I can't refrigerate the whole batch as leftovers and make the dish the next day. We shall see. I'm having visions of a cold, crumbly mess, which would not be good.

UPDATE!
No cold crumbly mess in sight. This means you can even forgo the egg mixed into the risotto (which I did) and it'll still hold up just fine. I fried these bad boys up - golf ball to racquetball sized and they flew off the plate. The deep fried testicles (olives) not so much.
This is an ooey gooey mess, so be prepared for it, or watch Alton Brown and let him learn ya some battering tips. Start watching around 9:10 for the part I'm talking about.










1 comment:

rommy said...

Loved this. Thanks for posting the recipe. Thanks so much for hosting a great party! You and Q always have a place to stay in Stockholm. And don't ask me how I found your blog...I can't remember.