Arancini

Sometime ago I tried these typical Italian rice bowls and like them. So I wanted to give it a go one day. The ones I tried had spinach and cheese inside. I quick search showed me videos for arancini but with meat. It looks good but wanted to try the spinach version so I went a bit free style.

These are the videos used as reference: link1 and link2

Ingredients for the rice balls

  • 1 and 1/2 cup of arborio/paella rice
  • 3 cups of boiling water
  • half onion chopped + splash of olive oil
  • pinch of sea salt
  • knob of butter
  • 1 tsp of tumeric

Process

  • Fry the onion with the oil in a deep pan until soft
  • Add the rice and mix all together for a minute
  • Add the boiling water, salt, butter and tumeric
  • Cook at middle temperature and stir often
  • Once all liquid is absorbed, spread the rice in a tray to cool down.

Ingredients for the filling

  • 500g of washed spinachs
  • half onion chopped + splash of olive oil
  • 1 garlic clove
  • splash of milk
  • 1 big tsp flour

Process

  • Fry the onion with the olive oil until soft.
  • Add the garlic and fry until golden
  • Add the spinach. They will reduce quite a lot.
  • Stir often and once the spinach are like a paste, add the milk and flour
  • Remove from heat and let it cool down

Frying the rice balls

Ingredients

  • 2 eggs
  • Breadcrumbs
  • sunflower oil (never through olive in the sink please!)
  • Cheese

Process

  • Heat up a deep pan with the sunflower oil.
  • have a plate with the breadcrumbs and another with the mixed eggs
  • For making the balls, as per videos, wet your hands, make a decent ball, and make a hole with a finger.
  • Fill the hole with the cheese and spinach.
  • Cover the ball with a bit more rice and follow the technique to shape it like an egg
  • Pass the ball by the egg, then breadcrumbs and finally into the hot oil.
  • Fry until golden

This is my result:

Veredict:

To be honest, they look as I remembered but my spinach filling wasnt as great as the ones I tried.

I think I need to use mozarella cheese and add something else to the spinach mix (salt? nutmeg?)

Next time I will try to find the Arancini recipe with spinach.

As usual, with practice, comes mastery.

Will try again.