ARANCINI (RICE BALLS) RECIPE

Directions

1. Beat the egg and milk in a small bowl until blended.
2. Fry rice: Get a frying pan and turn on to high heat. Pour 2 tsp olive oil, then toss in all the sticky rice and give it a cursory fry in about 1 minute. Sprinkle salt into the rice and stir it properly for 2 more minutes.
3. Cook the rice with Parmesan cheese: Get the fried sticky rice out into a large pot, spread them evenly to fill all over the bottom’s surface. Pour in water (or boiling chicken stock) so as the rice is an inch covered by the water. Turn on the stove to medium high heat in 5 minutes. Pour in Parmesan cheese and stir properly so it melts and marries well with the rice. Put on the lid to cover. Reduce the heat to medium level and keep it that way in 7 minutes. Finally, shut down the stove, remove the pot from heat and let sit so it can cool down a bit.
4. Make the filling Heat the olive oil on a frying pan over high heat. Add garlic and then green peas, stir a bit. After 1 minute, toss the carrot in and keep stirring for 2 more minutes before tossing onion in at last. Stir until fragrant (but make sure the onion slices don’t turn brown), then add ground pork. Sprinkle some pinches of pepper and salt, and continue to stir for 3 - 5 minutes based on your usual habit of having meat done to a turn or a bit underdone. Remove the pan from the stove and let chill.
5. Make balls For each ball, get 3-4 tablespoons of cooked sticky rice and use your palm to roll it into a ball. Press to flatten the rice ball, then stuff the filling that has been done at step 3, together with 1-2 cubes of Cheddar cheese right in the center. Finally, roll up to enclose them. Coat each ball with flour, roll in the milk and egg mixture, then a final coat of flour as a finish. Get your rice balls to a large saucepan with plenty of oil and deep fry them. As the oil starts to shimmer, scoop the balls out on paper to drain, then serve immediately while they’re still hot.
6. Notes Any batch of Arancini can be stored in the fridge overnight. Next day you take them out, just heat them in the microwave without defrosting first. But, simultaneously, for each batch of Arancini, you should only stick them in and out within 3 days of use for best quality and flavor. So please remember to consider on the yield, as well as the number of your table’s mates to prevent overfeeding. Since Arancini is already a sizzling serving, getting a sweet cinch to side is definitely a legit step. A tomato-spearmint cocktail would be wonderful, I suppose.