Thanks to my less than diligent recipe reading on Red Beans & Rice & Joss Whedon Night, there was a TON of rice leftever for Learn How to Make Those Fried Italian Rice Ball Thingees Night. A couple of years back some friends and I took a very impromptu trip to New York, thanks to a killer deal on round trip flights out of San Diego. In fact, I asked my boyfriend at the time (who’d I’d been dating for a whopping two months) “Hey do you wanna take a trip to New York with me in three months?” Shockingly instead of running screaming for the door, he said “Sure.” I should have recognized the red flag right then, but it took nearly a year of “Hey do you wanna…” and “Sure” exchanges for me to finally get tired of a guy who always agreed with me. Doesn’t sound so bad on the surface, but trust me – it wears thin. If he weren’t so darn nice, I would have cut him loose a lot sooner. I know I know! Boo hoo. Nice to me all the time, did whatever I wanted him to do, even sent roses to my office on Valentine’s Day. Too bad independent thought and a little get up and go are so high on my priority list. Call me heartless. Wow, that was a really good tangent even for me! It’s related, I promise. While we were in New York, we double decker tour bused it over to Canal Street, to do a little knock off purse shopping. I still carry the giant black and white striped “Dolce & Gabbana” I bought there every day, best 25 bucks I ever spent! Chinatown and Little Italy butt right up against each other, and as soon as I rounded the corner and realized where we were, I had only one thing on my mind: cheesy salty crunchy rice balls. I had no idea what they were called, only that I wanted one, and I’d come to the right place. Sure enough, the very first mom & pop Italian market I poked my head into had a whole tray behind the counter. I bought one, made all my friends try a piece, and went galavanting off in search of more fun things to eat. Pretty much our entire trip was motivated by what we were going to eat once we got there, now that I think about it. Brooklyn for pizza and Wicked hot chocolate, Harlem for barbecue, Upper East Side for bagels, Midtown for a fancy-reservations-required-a-month-in-advance-dinner, Chelsea for more pizza, theatre district for cheese cake, cupcakes from a place called Sugar Sweet Sunshine (best bakery name ever), hot dogs and papaya juice on the last day on our way to dinner, you get the idea. I barely even gave that little fried ball of rice, cheese and pancetta a second thought, until Dee said she was gonna throw away the majority of our leftover rice nearly two years later. I stopped her at the last second, and packed it all up instead. A little research the next day revealedvthat what I actually needed for my arancini project (they have a name!) was left over risotto, not left over plain white rice. For that reason the version I eventually made was less than authentic, but still crazy good. I mixed up the rice with some beaten eggs, grated parmesan, diced pancetta, salt & pepper, a little sprinkle of flour, a good shake of dried parsley, basil and oregano, and a nugget of marinated fresh mozzarella tucked inside. I used just enough egg to hold everything together, probably about two eggs for every three or so cups of rice. I rolled the balls lightly in seasoned flour, dipped them in a beaten egg, and then coated them with seasoned bread crumbs. I put them in the fridge to set up for about 20 minutes before I fried them, as I didn’t completely trust them not to fall apart they second they hit the oil.
The candy thermometer I bought a couple weeks ago for no apparent reason came in awfully handy, as I probably would’ve underestimated how long my pot of oil took to come to a full 350 degrees. Deep frying isn’t exactly a regular occurance around this house, so I’m sure my oil mix was less than ideal – it was literally everything I could find in the house, dumped in a pot together. Mostly canola, with a good dose of olive, topped off with grapeseed. Super low smoke point mixed with super high smoke point I know, but it all worked out in the end! I really did have a TON of rice on my hands, enough for around 16 good sized balls of fried goodness. They were amazing straight out of the pot, all super crunchy and melty. They were still good out of the low oven a couple hours later, when my roommate came home and mumbled something about “Are those…? They are! Omigod that tastes like my childhood…cheese? Uh oh. Don’t care.” She was a military kid, who lived in Italy for four years. Arancini are really just Italian street food, and back then, her severe lactose intolerance hadn’t reared it’s ugly head. She ate one anyway, and lived to tell the tale. A couple of days later I took the leftovers to the Brown house (her family lives here in town, and they’re my surrogate fam), where nobody but me rooted for the poor playoff cursed Chargers. They definitely lost something sitting in the fridge, and never really achieved their full crunchy crispy glory again. I highly recommend eating them the same day they’re made. Mine were on the large side, about three inches in diameter. Smaller, and with a bowl of warm marinara sauce for dipping, they’d make a killer party snack. As for me, I ate them for dinner with an baby heirloom tomato salad on the side. Next time I’ll find a recipe for a more authentic version (read: there’s risotto in my near future), and update this post. In the meantime though, my cobbled together version was pretty darn good!
