Great Balls of Fry

Last week had a double header of dinner parties: a Fried Ball themed potluck and an afternoon tea. The afternoon tea I can get to in a later post, but the fried ball onslaught is well documented. I agreed to make two dishes: falafel (already covered back in June 10, 2009 in Fallin, Fallin, Falafelin In Love) and arancini, which are basically deep fried stuffed risotto balls. In Rome arancini are called suppli, or suppli al telefono when stuffed with mozzarella because when you pull one apart you get a cord of cheese connecting the two bits. Then you have to have an imaginary conversation with one end before you shove the whole thing in your mouth.

The day before, make up some risotto. I think I blogged risotto before but hey, it's easy, we can do it again. In your food processor, pulse 4 oz crimini mushrooms, .5 of an onion, 1 carrot, 1 rib celery, and 10 basil leaves until everything is coarsely chopped. Melt 3 tbsp butter in your pressure cooker on medium-low heat. Add the chopped veggies to the butter, fry until the mushrooms have quit giving up liquid and are quite dry. Add 2 cloves garlic, minced, fry 30 seconds. Add 2 cups arborio rice, stir, frying, until the rice grains turn sort of translucent at the ends where they absorb the oils. This is a pretty critical part of risotto making. It provides a little oily waterproofing for the rice grains so that they do not absorb too much moisture and get gushy. Good risotto is a blend of creamy sauce and al dente grain, not gush in gush sauce. Once the rice has been pumped with butter in this way, add .5 cup dry white wine or vermouth and 1 tsp salt. Cook, stirring, until the wine is absorbed. Add 4.5 cups chicken stock, stir to combine, then lid the vessel and set on high pressure for 6 minutes. At the end of the 6 minutes, dump the pressure, unlid the vessel, and set to simmer. Add .5 cup more stock while stirring, allow it to get creamier, absorbing more of the liquid, then add 1.5 cups shredded Parmesan, freshly grated. Stir until the cheese is melted and integrated into the sauce. Pecorino romano works here as well but makes it a bit saltier. Don't use the Kraft pregrated stuff unless you like grit; anticaking agents in pregrated Parmesan also prevent it from melting smoothly. Pour off 3 cups of the risotto and put it in the fridge to make the suppli. Serve the rest for dinner. Hey, look at that, two suppers in one.

The thing about suppli is that it almost certainly was invented to use up leftover risotto, which is notorious for degrading in taste and quality when stored. By stuffing small quantities of risotto with soft cheese, breading them, and deep frying, some of the risotto's original creaminess is brought back from the grave, this time with a crispy coating.

Put your 3 cups of leftover risotto into a big bowl and add 3 eggs, beaten, stir to incorporate. In a big plate, put about 2 cups panko bread crumbs. Dice 8 oz of mozzarella into .5" cubes. You'll want to use supermaket block mozzarella, the hard stuff, not the buffalo or fresh mozzarella from the gourmet deli, it's too mushy to work with here. Wet your hands. Grab a heaping tablespoon of the risotto egg mixture in your hands, then kind of push a mozzarella cube into the mass, making sure the risotto mixture completely covers the cheese. Shape into a sphere. Roll the sphere in the panko until it isn't sticky anymore. Put on a baking sheet lined with saran wrap. Repeat this process until you are out of something. You should have a full cookie sheet of ready-to-go suppli. Gently wrap the cookie sheet full of suppli with saran wrap. Don't crush the balls! Slide into the refrigerator for 30 minutes or overnight.

When you're ready to fry, unwrap your balls. If any got crushed, roll it around in your hands until spherical again, making sure no cheese is exposed. If there is it is an awful mess. Heat some oil up to 350, or as close as you can get. 300 seems to be the limit of an electric burner/big pot combination; if you have a purpose built deep fryer you can probably do better. 300 worked for me. Carefully, gently plunk each ball into the oil. Just hold the ball right over the surface of the oil, let go, and get your hand out of the way as fast as you can without knocking shit over. Think "feeding a tiger sardines". Fry the balls until they are deep golden brown all over. Skim them out with your spider. A spider's one of those wide mesh devices you'll see a lot of in Oriental food and gift shops. They're like three bucks, go and get one. Once the balls are crispy and delicious, remove and set the ball on paper towels to drain. Serve with good marinara sauce for spoonin' and dunkin'. Probably be a good idea to serve some Tums too.