Arancini

[guajolote]

i've never made arancini and would appreciate some advice.

should i cook the risoto a little firmer than usual?

could i make them golf-ball sized? the ones I've seen are the size of a large orange.

are these always breaded?

thanks

[Craig Camp]

I usually make extra risotto and use the leftovers. You don't want the rice to be dry as it has to be pliable and sticky. There are big ones and small ones, but the big ones are the stuffed ones you see in Sicily.

[maggiethecat]

We make the identical dish, but make the balls smaller---it's called suppli al telefono--(telephone wires, because of the way the mozz pulls out in naplam-like strings when you bite into them. 0 From the Rome area, according to the T-L "Cooking of Italy " . Definitely smaller than an orange---two to three tablespoons of risotto apiece.

And yes, they must be coated in egg and breadcrumbs before they're deep-fried. I love these.

[guajolote]

We make the identical dish, but make the balls smaller---it's called suppli al telefono--(telephone wires, because of the way the mozz pulls out in naplam-like strings when you bite into them. 0 From the Rome area, according to the T-L "Cooking of Italy " . Definitely smaller than an orange---two to three tablespoons of risotto apiece.

And yes, they must be coated in egg and breadcrumbs before they're deep-fried. I love these.

i hope you realize that you just volunteered to make them for me NY's eve

[docsconz]

"Arrancino" means little orange. They are indeed supposed to be he size of a small orange, therefore golfball size is too small. As Craig says the rice needs to be sticky so they shouldn't be too dry. On the other hand, they shouldn't be soupy either.

My son and I made them for Christmas eve last year. We learned how to make them from Ana Tasca Lanza at Regaleali in Sicily. Yum.

[Varmint]

Actually, arancini are a good "participation" dish. Make the risotto and the filling. Then get an assembly line started: oil up the hands, start the ball in a cupped hand, insert filling, complete ball, roll in egg, roll in bread crumbs, fry.

I did this for my "interactive" Italian dinner party this past summer for the summer clerks of my firm. The clerks did all the work. I served the arancini with a mushroom ragout. Mmmmmmm.

[guajolote]

Actually, arancini are a good "participation" dish. Make the risotto and the filling. Then get an assembly line started: oil up the hands, start the ball in a cupped hand, insert filling, complete ball, roll in egg, roll in bread crumbs, fry.

I did this for my "interactive" Italian dinner party this past summer for the summer clerks of my firm. The clerks did all the work. I served the arancini with a mushroom ragout. Mmmmmmm.

I'm going to get a cocktail and "supervise"

[maggiethecat]

i hope you realize that you just volunteered to make them for me NY's eve

Just have the vat of boiling oil handy, and make sure I make them before the third drink.

[etnea]

I just made the arancini and no, the rice should not be cooked firmer than usual.

You need to use three cups of water to one cup of rice ( multiply from there) and the rice should cook for exactly 20 minutes and you cannot drain it.

What rice kernels will you be using?

[etnea]

The arancini are not made from left over risotto... The rice needs to cook with saffron threads and some salt.

You need to make a sugo ( Sicilan tomato and meat sauce) with beef filet cubes.

The sugo will cook for hours so that a rich, thick sauce is produced.

You need peas and fontina for the filling, along with the sugo and the shredded beef.

Once the rice is cooked ( 20 minutes and not drained) you add eggs ( as a binder) and grated pecorino pepato. YOu cool the rice, preferably overnight, until totally cool.

For coating, you will need a thin paste made of hot water and flour and Italian style breadcrums.

Once the sugo and rice are ready, then you can start to put the arancini together.

Yes, you cup the rice (inverted) in one hand and fill with meat, cheese, peas and sauce, with the other hand, you form a dome and cover the inverted, filled part.

Dip in the flour/water batter, making sure there is no excess and then coat with breadcrumbs.

Fry them in hot oil until dark, golden brown.

I only make them twice a year because it is a laborious process.

[docsconz]

I first learned to make aranicine with Ana Tasca Lanza at Regaleali in Sicily. She made it look so easy and it was. Using her technique (or what I remember from it) as a base along with her cookbook and a few othes I made a variation with the arancine stuffed with a pork ragu, peas and bits of mozzarella di bufala. The rice I used was carnaroli, that seeme to be of a good quality. While the arancine tasted delicious, they had too much of a tendenccy to break up. They were fragile. I'll describe my proces a little more than see if anyone can point out ways I might have improved their reslience.

i made my ragu with chopped pork, onion, tomatoes, carrots and thyme and added peas. It was nice and thick and quite tasty if I say so myself. The risotto was made with carnaroli rice, Star "Classico" broth (as recommended by Ana Tasca Lanza at Regaleali), plenty of butter, Locatelli Pecorino Romano Cheese and a decent amount of saffron. This too was quite tasty and a bit al dente. It would have made a fine meal on its own then and there. To this I added a beaten egg. I would take a spoonfull of the risotto in my cupped hand, indent it, then add a small piece of mozzarella and some ragu, mold it and cover it with additional risotto to make a small ball. I then carefully dredged the ball in homemade breadcrumbs. They were already fragile by this point, when I fried them in 400 degree canola oil. They came out tasting fine and were light and fluffy, but one had to be too careful with them. Other arancine I've had were not nearly so fragile. Now, I am not looking to use them as baseballs. I just want to not have to be so skittish with them.

Any thoughts on my technique? What do you do and what variations do you use?

[Kevin72]

I made a variation on that myself recently (more along the lines of the Roman suppli and they were shallow pan-fried). My only suggestions would be more egg, and maybe did you let the risotto rest a day after you made it? As it sits it absorbs more liquid and gets tighter. That's all I can think of. Mine, too, were fragile, but tasty.

[slkinsey]

A couple of suggestions:

1. Make the arancine from leftover risotto. If you know you want to have arancine, make extra risotto a day or two earlier. The cold storage time seems to firm things up. This is the only time I tend to make arancine: when I want to use up a bunch of leftover risotto.

2. Make sure the risotto is a dense one. No vialone nano rice sull'onda.

3. Make sure that the risotto recipe you use is a mostly-rice risotto rather than one with a lot of chunky ingredients. Risotto alla Milanesa is perfect. This doesn't sound like it was a problem for you, but its worth mentioning.

4. The egg binder is a good idea. I also stiffen the mixture with extra grated parmigiano reggiano and fresh untoasted no-crust bread crumbs. The idea is that the mixture is relatively dry and coherent when you start to form the bals. The use of fresh bread crumbs, in particular, seems to give the arancine structural strength without making them tough or heavy.

5. Don't overfill the arancine. If you're filing with ragu, peas and mozarella, I assume you're only using a tiny bit of each.

[docsconz]

As far as leftover vs. fresh, Tasca Lanza recommends shaping the balls while the risotto is still arm. when we made it in Sicily it was fresh. I did let them sit for a few hours after they were formed until I fried them, I figured that would help. They didn't fall completely apart, but they still had to be handled with care.

It seems to me that perhaps I should have used more egg to bind them than I did. The arancine were not overstuffed. Maybe I didn't compress them enough.

[slkinsey]

Who are you going to believe, John, Tasca Lanza or me?

Seriously, though, it if works for her it must work. That said, her results notwithstanding I can't imagine how it woud work if you did it with warm, fresh risotto. AFAIK, arancini di riso were "invented" to use up leftover rice.

[docsconz]

On page 135 of Ana Tasca Lanza's book The Heart of Sicily: Recipes and Reminiscences of Regaleali she writes

Pour the rice into a large bowl and set it in a cold water bath. Add the eggs asa soon as the rice is no longer hot enough to cook them. Make the rice balls while the rice is still warm and malleable - it gets difficult to shape as it cools.

On the other hand, Clifford Wright, in his book Cucina Paradiso: The Heavenly Food of Sicily appears to agree with you. On pg. 54 of this book he states:

Spoon the rice onto a platter and mix in the cheese and egg yolks. Spread the rice out to cool.

He then goes on after forming the balls to roll them in flour, dip in egg whites and then roll in bread crumbs before refrigerating them for 30 minutes before frying.

Guiliano Bugialli, in his book Foods of Sicily & Sardinia and the Smaller Islands has a somewhat different approach and technique. He makes his rice not in "the classic constant stirring risotto style", but "the drop the rice in boiling broth and let it sit style". He then shapes the rice into a large ball with three almost heaping tablespoons of rice before making a well into the ball for the filling and then adding a fourth tablespoon of rice to close it off. He also flours the rice ball, dips it into egg white and then rolls it in bread crumbs before frying.

Of course, Tasca Lanza is the only native Sicilian of the group.

[slkinsey]

Thanks for the info, Doc. This brings two thoughts to my mind:

1. It strikes me that cookcooks often proceed from the assumption that one is going to make the entire dish from scratch, whereas many Italian dishes were developed specifically to use leftovers. I still wonder whether, historically, rice was made expressly for the purpose of making arancine or whether, as I suspect, arancine were develped as a way to use up leftover rice.

2. We've been proceeding under the assumption that arancine should be made with risotto rice and either leftover or fresh risotto. Except... Arancine are traditionally Sicilian, right? But risotto isn't a Sicilian dish, is it? Do Sicilians traditionally use that kind of medium grain rice? Do Sicilians traditionally make stirred risotto-like rice dishes?

[docsconz]

Ana Tasca Lanza is Sicilian, yet she is the one making it with a risotto. Of course she is quite a bit more worldly and sophisticated than the average Sicilian. They were the best arancine I've ever had when I had them at her place.

There are clearly more than one way to skin a cat or make arancine. Mine should have been more resilient than they were. I'm still not sure why, although I have an idea of some things to try next time.

[slkinsey]

Ana Tasca Lanza is Sicilian, yet she is the one making it with a risotto. Of course she is quite a bit more worldly and sophisticated than the average Sicilian. They were the best arancine I've ever had when I had them at her place.

Well, right. I got that, and I have no trouble believing that her arancine are awesome or that her method works when properly implemented. Rather, I've been thinking more from a historical/tradtional perspective.

Today, of course, people everywhere use medium grain arborio rice and make stirred risotto-style rice dishes, regardless of where they live. But that doesn't make is a traditional food in all the regions where it is now cooked. It's not surprising that someone living in Sicily today would use risotto to make arancine, because people in Sicily have accesss to medium grain arborio rice, are aware of risotto and make risotto these days. I'm just not sure it has been this way for more than, say, 40-50 years. People in the Val d'Aosta use extra virgin olive oil today, too, but that doesn't mean that evoo is a traditional ingredient of the Val d'Aosta (afaik, it isn't).

My understanding of risotto has been that it is a traditional food of the North, which makes it unlikely, I would think, that it is a traditional constituent of arancine all the way down South in Sicily. This is not to say, however, that they aren't actually better made with risotto. It has always been my belief and assumption that they are.

[albiston]

Who are you going to believe, John, Tasca Lanza or me?

I agree, who do you want to believe slkinsey and me or some woman who just happens to come from one of Sicily's oldest and most influential families?

I have at least six different recipes for arancine, four from Sicily and two from Naples, where arancine are also quite popular. Both methods are described, but I personally have always got the best results leaving the risotto to cool before forming the arancine. I learned the method from the slow food book on Sicilian cuisine.

I never add egg or anything else in the rice, although quite a few recipes do, because I don't really like the taste the rice gets, I prefer it straight. If the risotto is nice and dry you don't actually need any binding agent.

The point on what rice was originally used is an interesting one. I have one recipe, just a scribbled sheet given to me by someone in Sicily who I don't remember, which uses riso originario, the rice one would use for rice sweets. Makes me wonder if that was the original rice for arancine. The arancine made with this method are not so nice BTW, the rice is way too sticky.

Just to make things a bit more complicated I'll add a few questions on arancine:

Which shape: round or cone? Which stuffing? Saffron, yes or no?

I had a few Sicilian friends who could argue for hours about these three questions . Just curious what your answers will be.

[dorpsch]

I have to agree that when I make suppli type balls, I prefer to use day old or older risotto because it has congealed more after sitting at refrigerator temperature for some time. A method that I find works is to take the leftover risotto, use sufficient egg and bread crumbs to create a nice binding effect without being too dense, avoid overstuffing the balls and letting them get too big, and then refrigerate them after I've formed them for another 20-40 minutes before final preparation.

[Kevin72]

. . . and then refrigerate them after I've formed them for another 20-40 minutes before final preparation.

Hmmm, I was going to suggest maybe the resting was the problem but then dorpsch mentioned it as a prep step as well. I seem to remember when I made mine having to move pretty quick and not letting them sit too long or they started to come apart.

[canadiancook]

Just to add more confusion here is another variation. this is my grandmother's method that she learned from her mother. She makes risotto specifcally for the arancine because she usually makes large batches and then freezes them. She doesn't use saffron to colour the rice but uses a bit of the tomato sauce from the ragu : a substitute borne from poverty - I prefer the saffron. The rice is arborio and the risotto is finished off with lots of butter and parmigiano - no egg.

The filling is veal ragu, along with the peas and mozzarella.

The rice is left to cool until it is just above room temperature and then are formed into cone shape using wetted hands. She doesn't dip the arancine in flour/egg/crumbs combination. The moisture from forming the balls with wetted hands makes the rice sufficiently sticky enough to make the fine breadcrumbs adhere without dipping in egg. They can be put in the fridge for a little while to set or put in the freezer to use within 3 months.

She fries them in lard: again this came from the poverty thing, lard was cheaper than olive oil but she still continues to use lard even though poverty has ceased to be an issue for my grandparents since coming to Canada over 40 years ago - of course frying in olive oil would probably provide a better result. If she started with frozen ones she just places in a moderate oven for about 15 minutes after frying to make sure the filling is thoroughly heated and the cheese is totally melted inside.

So to sum up 1) no egg in the rice, 2) no egg dip for breadcrumbs and 3) no leftover/day old rice.

I have tried my grandmother's recipe a few times and never get as good a result as she does. I always have problems with the rice: sometimes to wet, sometimes to dry and then I end up trying to adjust the consistency of the rice after it cools. This seems to be one of those things like baking bread. You have to devlop a feel for it where you just know the right consistency. Most of my grandmother's recipes dont have measurements. They are more like descriptions: add enough flour..., add enough cheese..., add enough water... One day I hope to have a revelation and understand what "enough" means.

edited for grammar and spelling

Edited August 18, 2004 by canadiancook (log)

[katiaANDronald]

Hello,

so arancine or arancini, at least in Sicily, are cone shaped in Messina, Catania, Siracusa, Ragusa while in the West they tend to be round (like arance\oranges).

Zafferano seems to be a more popular choice than not adding it for the traditional ones. The classic stuffing is a ragu with minced meat and piselli. In Catania you tend to find also a piece of cheese.

In Enna, they do it with chicken liver, onion, white wine and tomato sauce (a soffritto).

In Ragusa, its ragu, piselli and cacio but the rice is previously mixed with some tomato sauce (and no zafferano).

Once the rice is stuffed and closed they are passed in beaten egg and bread crumbs and fried. The rice can even be boiled (not necessary to do a rissotto) as long as it is removed al dente. Generally, the tendency seems to be to allow the rice to rest for at least a couple of hours or even use rice from the day before. Passing the rice from cold water seems a strange choice because it will remove the amido of the rice that can act as a bonding agent, still I guess this will vary according to the type of rice.

A more modern variation are arancine in bianco with either spinach or cheese and ham (usually round shaped everywhere).

We are aware this will not help a bit in clearing matters up but its some more info to through in the mix

[docsconz]

Excellent!

One thing about risotto and Sicily. While I do not know this for fact, it is plausible that risotto has been around Sicily for a long time, especially in the more urban areas. Sicily is the original "melting pot" with culinary influences longstanding from all over. This is what makes the cuisine relatively unique. Sicilian cuisine has a lot of arab, french, spanish as well as italian influence.

I may have to try making them again sooner rather than later with some variations.