Arancini Recipe - Made with Beras Adan

In our search for food collaborators, we had the opportunity to work with Mike Choo. This is part of 3 recipe ideas contributed by him.

Arancini

This is a dish whereby you use up your leftovers. In Italy, during the olden days, the people were poor, and they had to think of a way to save up food. One of the ways was to use leftover risotto rice and also easily accessible ingredients like eggs and stale breads that are later turned to breadcrumbs. It was a poor man’s food whereby nothing was left to waste, they had to use anything they have around, everything was then mixed up together, crumbed, and then deep fried. Crispy on the outside, filling in the inside. Now, Arancini is enjoyed as a snack or a side dish throughout Italy.

I love the concept of zero waste in this dish, therefore, i wish to share with you this idea too. In this recipe, we will make risotto bianco and then turn it into arancinis. Risotto bianco is actually a base for all risotto, and then other ingredients are added to make different flavors. I have another risotto which includes tomato and basil, you may check it out.

Prep time : 1 hour

Cooking time : 20minutes

Steps

1. Saute garlic and onion in oil until fragrant but not brown.

2. Add in the rice and toast. To check if your rice is toasted, smell for the fragrance or grab some of the rice with your finger, if it’s hot to touch, it’s toasted enough.

3. Add in the shao hsing wine and mix it evenly.

4. Add some stock /water to cover the rice. Do not add all, add little by little as we cook. Keep at a gentle simmer on medium heat. Add some salt here.

5. Once your rice starts to become dry, add some liquid again until it's covered and repeat. This process takes around 13 mins to cook.

6. Check every 4 minutes to see if the risotto is cooked.

7. Once the rice has reached just before al dente (just cooked), remove from heat, add in the cheese, black pepper and check the salt seasoning. 

8. Spread the risotto on a plate and keep in the refrigerator to cool down for 30mins.

9. Prepare your breading items and heat up your oil to 180 °C while waiting for the risotto to cool.

10. Once cool, weigh the risotto to 30g each and roll into a ball. Place a small cube of mozzarella and close the hole. Repeat.

11. Drop the arancini in the flour, followed by egg and lastly breadcrumb.

12. Fry the arancini for around 3 minutes or until golden brown

13. Serve while it’s hot and enjoy that gooey cheese effect as you pull it apart.

Tips :

1. Make sure your liquid is hot. If cold liquid is added to the risotto, the risotto will not simmer, which will take a long time to cook since the temperature of the liquid has been lowered.

2. Check that the risotto is not too wet. Too much moisture will create too much steam that causes the arancini to break apart during frying.

3. Make sure you have a dry hand and wet hand when you bread the arancinis. The dry hand touches the flour and bread crumbs while the wet hand only touches the egg.

4. Ensure that the oil temperature is hot so that the bread crumb will harden and prevents the arancini from breaking apart.

5. Optional: You may add in some fresh herbs like thyme, basil, chive or rosemarry together in the risotto to enhance the flavour.

---

We hope you'll enjoy trying this out!
Explore other recipes : here

Follow our journey here: