Name: Arancini (Fried Sicilian Rice Balls)
Prep time: 40 min
Cook time: 40 min
Total time: 1 h 20 min
Yield: 12 servings
Cuisine: Italian
Ingredients: 400 g arborio rice; 1 L water or chicken stock; 1 pinch saffron; 40 g butter; 60 g parmigiano; 1 tsp salt; 200 g minced beef; 0.5 onion; 2 tbsp tomato paste; 60 ml red wine; 80 g peas; 2 tbsp olive oil; 120 g mozzarella; 100 g plain flour; 150 ml water; 200 g fine breadcrumbs; 1 L oil for frying

Ingredients

12servings

Saffron rice
arborio rice · or carnaroli; a starchy short grain400 g
water or chicken stock1 L
saffron · steeped 10 minutes in 2 tbsp warm water1 pinch
butter40 g
parmigiano · grated60 g
salt1 tsp
Ragù filling
minced beef200 g
onion · finely chopped0.5
tomato paste2 tbsp
red wine60 ml
peas80 g
olive oil2 tbsp
mozzarella · drained, cut into 1cm cubes120 g
Coating
plain flour100 g
water · whisked with the flour into a pastella150 ml
fine breadcrumbs200 g
oil for frying1 L

Steps

Put the rice in a pan with the steeped saffron, salt and water, cover, and cook until the water is absorbed, about 18 minutes. There is no need to stir it like a risotto — what you want here is grains that bind, not creaminess.
⏲ 18 min
Off the heat, stir in the butter and parmigiano, then spread it thin on a wide tray and cool it completely. Not just off the boil — at least 4 hours in the fridge, better overnight. This step is the whole dish.
⏲ 240 min
Make the ragù. Soften the onion in oil, brown the mince, pour in the wine and cook it off, then add the tomato paste and 100ml water and reduce for 30 minutes. Stir in the peas and cool it. The filling must be thick — any liquid left in it boils inside the ball and bursts it.
⏲ 30 min
With wet hands, take about 80g of the cold rice, flatten it on your palm and press a hollow into the middle.
Put in a spoonful of ragù and a cube of mozzarella, and close the rice over it so it is completely sealed, with no seam. One gap and the cheese escapes through it and spits in the oil (wrapping and sealing).
Shape it: a ball in the Palermo style, a cone shaped like Etna in the Catania style. Either way the surface has to be smooth, or it splits as it fries.
Whisk the flour and water into a smooth, thin pastella. Sicilians use this rather than egg wash — it coats more thinly than egg, so the crust is crisper and takes up less oil. Roll each ball in it, then press it firmly into the breadcrumbs.
Put the coated balls on a tray and chill 30 minutes. The coating sets and will not peel away in the oil.
⏲ 30 min
Heat the oil to 175°C and fry two or three at a time for 5-6 minutes, until deep brown. Crowd the pan and the temperature drops and the crust drinks oil (deep-frying).
⏲ 5 min 30 sec
Drain on a rack and let them stand 5 minutes. Bitten straight from the oil, the cheese inside is hot enough to burn (serving temperature).
⏲ 5 min

Tips & Variations

Variations

Arancina or arancino — in Sicily this is a real argument: in Palermo and the west it is feminine, arancina (plural arancine), and shaped as a ball. In Catania and the east it is masculine, arancino (plural arancini), and shaped as a cone said to resemble Etna. The name comes from arancia, orange, for the colour and shape of the fried thing. This page simply uses the plural the world outside Sicily knows.
Fillings: ragù is standard (al ragù); al burro with butter, ham and béchamel is the other classic, and spinach, aubergine and pistachio versions are common. In Catania they are eaten especially on 13 December, the feast of Santa Lucia.
From leftover risotto: the traditional base is saffron rice, but leftover risotto is how most people make them now and it works well — provided it is risotto that has been cold overnight. Fresh risotto will never hold.
The exact reverse of spam musubi: there the rice has to be pressed hot, because the starch has not yet retrograded and the grains will compress into each other. Here nothing holds together until it has. The same phenomenon, worked before it happens in one dish and after it in the other.
Against lamington: the third dish here where going stale is a requirement rather than a fault.
Against tonkatsu and menchi katsu — a different coating: those use the three-stage flour, egg, breadcrumb. Sicily uses pastella, flour whisked with water. It clings more thinly than egg, so the crust is crisper, and with no egg the coating tastes of less.

Tips

The rice must be cold. It is the only reason this dish fails. Shaped from lukewarm rice the balls hold in your hand and disintegrate the moment they meet the oil. Spread it thin and refrigerate it; at a pinch, thirty minutes in the freezer.
Why cold matters. As rice cools its starch recrystallises — retrogradation — and the surface of each grain turns tacky and grips its neighbours. In freshly cooked rice the starch is still dispersed and that grip does not exist. Cold rice sticking together is not an inconvenience here, it is the ingredient.
Use a starchy short grain. Arborio or carnaroli. A long grain will not bind however long you chill it.
Reduce the filling properly. A wet ragù boils inside the ball as it fries, builds pressure, and bursts out at the weakest point. It should not run off the spoon.
Close the seam. Wet your hands and smooth the surface. A visible crack is where it will split.
Try the pastella. Flour and water, nothing else. It coats more thinly than egg, so the crumbs sit evenly and the crust does not puff away from the rice.
Chill the coated balls 30 minutes. The crumb sets and stops peeling off in the oil, and the ball itself firms up and holds its shape.
175°C, a few at a time. Hotter and the outside burns before the cheese melts; cooler and the coating drinks oil. Two or three at a time keeps the temperature up.
Rest them five minutes. The mozzarella inside is close to boiling as they come out. The crust actually improves over those five minutes.
Reheat in the oven. Ten minutes at 180°C brings the crust back. A microwave turns it soft and makes it a different food entirely.

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