With all the rice recipes I have given you, I thought now would be a good time to do a recipe on what to do with leftover rice. The April’s Arancini Alabama Style calls for two cups cooked and cooled rice. You can either cook some plain rice or you could use leftover rice. The saffron rice would be a perfect one to use. I would probably also put a stuffed green olive in with it. You can play around with what kind of rice you use as well as the filling. Some ideas I plan on trying are using a Mexican cheese with a slice or two of jalapenos and use saffron rice. Then maybe I will try some feta cheese and spinach or maybe a mini-meatball and some Fontina cheese. You can let your imagination run wild and come up with your own creation. I would love to hear any ideas you have. Serve these arancini with Honey Mustard Sauce.
April's Arancini Alabama Style
April's Arancini Alabama Style
Author: April Ozbilgin
Recipe type: Appetizer
Ingredients
- 2 Cups Cooked Rice, Cooled
- 2 Eggs, beaten
- ⅓ Cup Italian Six Cheese Blend Cheese, or finely grated mozzarella
- 10 ounces Sharp Aged Cheddar
- 10 slices Hard Salami or Genoa Salami
- 1 Cup Flour
- 3 Eggs, beaten
- 1 Cup Italian Style Bread Crumbs
- 1 Bowl Water
- 3 Cups Vegetable Oil (More or less depending on your pan size)
Instructions
- Cooking Directions
- Mix the cold rice with 2 beaten eggs.
- Cut the Cheese into cubes.
- Stack the 10 slices of salami and cut into quarters.
- You ideally want these rice balls to be about the size of a small lime. Mine, however, were more like a medium lemon. The smaller they are the better the cheese will melt.
- Slightly wet your hands then take a small amount of the rice mixture in your hands.
- Cup your hand and make an indention in the center.
- Place one slice (which is cut into quarters) of salami in the indention you have just made.
- Place a cheese cube on the salami.
- Gently press the rice around the top of the cheese and salami to cover completely.
- You may need to wet your hands again. Press into a nice shaped ball.
- Place on a plate covered with wax paper and continue until you have used all the rice, salami and cheese.
- Refrigerate for 1-2 hours or better yet overnight.
- Set up a dredging station with the flour, 3 eggs and Italian bread crumbs.
- Take the rice balls out of the fridge.
- You can start heating your oil for frying. I used a small pan. Use common sense and do not over fill your pan with oil. Use a deep pan and only fill about half full. The temperature for frying is about 350 degrees. If you do not have a thermometer, you can test by placing a 1 inch cube of bread in the oil. It should brown in 60 seconds. You may have to lower or raise your heat during cooking, again use common sense. You may also prefer to use an electric deep fryer for safety.
- Turn your oven to 200 degrees if you want to keep the arancini warm because you will be cooking them in batches.
- While the oil is heating, continue with the preparation.
- Roll the balls in the flour, shaking off excess.
- Next, roll in the beaten eggs, shaking off excess.
- Finally, roll in the bread crumbs, shaking off excess.
- Place on a wire rack over a plate until you are ready to fry.
- Once your oil is hot enough, you can cook two - three arancini at a time, while you continue dredging the rest of them in the flour, eggs, and bread crumbs.
- Cook the arancini for about 3 - 4 minutes and turn and cook 2 - 3 minutes more. They should be golden brown.
- When cooked, drain the arancini on paper towels and place in warm oven while you continue cooking the rest of them.
- Serve the arancini piping hot with a sauce of your choice such as marinara, honey mustard, ranch or garlic yogurt
