Conquering the fear, Italian style.

I am an incredibly accident prone person.  You name it and I can break it, spill it, trip over it or get tangled up in it.  This has led to a perfectly rational fear of cooking anything in a lot of oil.  Visions of the entire house ablaze have kept me from attempting anything involving more than the tiniest covering of oil in a pan.  After discussing the strategy should the pan catch fire with the husband and only just stopping short of a full blown fire drill, I made arancini for dinner.  Arancini are little balls of leftover risotto rolled in breadcrumbs and fried in oil.  They usually have some kind of cheese in them but you can add almost anything you like really.  I kept mine simple and just added mozzarella and parmesan.  The husband and I are huge fans of these and usually have them whenever we hit an Italian restaurant which is sadly not as often as it used to be.  Never being one to do things the easy way I decided not to wait until I had leftover risotto but instead make a small batch at lunchtime with some stock and a few tablespoons of passata to give it a faint tomato flavour.  A friend had leant me a copy of Tessa Kiros' Apples for Jam this week and the inspiration to finally give it a go came from there.  If you haven't read this book then I thoroughly recommend it and I'll be trying out many things inspired by it in the coming weeks.  Stacked up with some gnocchi cooked in the oven and scatted with mozzarella and a tomato and chilli sauce for dipping, these little beauties were Saturday night heaven on a plate for me.  

I used:
300g cold leftover risotto
1 egg, beaten
breadcrumbs (I forgot to weigh these but they covered one dinner plate)
parmesan (to taste)
50g mozzarella cut into small cubes
Vegetable oil for frying


Makes 8-10 arancini


Add the egg to the cold risotto and combine, it should be firm but also sticky.  
Grate parmesan into the mixture, as much as you like.  I love parmesan so added a lot but you can do this to taste.
Take a small amount of the rice mixture and roll into a ball.
Poke a hole in the middle of the ball, add a mozzarella cube and then wrap the rice around the cheese sealing it in the centre.  Put to one side and repeat with the rest of the rice mixture.
The little balls should be sticky enough to take on the breadcrumbs without having to roll in egg again.  Roll each of the balls in the breadcrumbs and then chill in the fridge until firm. This took me about 30 minutes but it may be more or less depending on your mixture.
Put 2-3 cm of oil in a heavy based frying pan and heat slowly, preferably one with high sides to keep the risk of spitting and making a mess to a minimum.  A wok would also probably work here but I don't have one! 
Having your fire evacuation plan sorted, gently lower the balls into the oil using a slotted spoon and fry in batches of 2-3 at a time.  They should only need a couple of minutes on each side until golden brown then remove with your slotted spoon and drain on kitchen towel while the rest cook.


Next time I make these I think I'm going to go for a more punchy tomato taste, possibly with some chilli. There is definitely going to be a next time as these little wonders have vanquished my fear of hot oil for good.