Arancini Style Rice Fritters

It’s easy enough to figure out what to do with left over rice. One needs to get a little more creative with left overs of fried rice or pulav. I sometimes have left over vegetable fried rice or vegetable pulav. Today’s Arancini Style Rice Fritters are a good way to use that up, and they’re really easy to make.

Arancini are Italian or Sicilian fritters made of small stuffed risotto balls that are coated in egg, dredged in breadcrumbs, and deep fried till golden and crisp. They get their name from the word for “small oranges” because of their appearance. They’re also known as Suppli. I understand that they’re occasionally referred to as “arancini di riso al telefono”. This refers to the long string formed by the mozarella when the arancini is broken and pulled apart!

Round Arancini tend to be filled with ragu, mozzarella and peas while the cone shaped Arancini usually have cheese. There’s no hard and fast rule about this though. They can be served plain or with a tomato based sauce.

Arancini are made with risotto which is generally made with sticky Arborio rice. This stickiness helps when trying to shape the rice into balls for Arancini. We generally don’t use sticky rice to make Pulav or Fried Rice. So then, I would suggest steam cooking the left over rice a bit to make it softer. Mash it a bit. Add the cheese once it has cooled down and then shape into balls. If you’re going to cook rice especially to make these Arancini Style Rice Fritters, then use a short or medium grain starchy rice.

I call these Arancini Style Rice Fritters and not just Arancini for a reason. For one, they’re not made with Arborio rice. They’re not filled with anything, but are just made with vegetable fried rice and cheese. I’m not a fan of stringy cheese in anything, including pizza. So these fritters have a mix of grated Cheddar and processed cheese. As you can see, they’re far from authentic. However, that doesn’t mean they’re not good.

I’m not sharing a recipe as such for these Rice Fritters as I really do not have one. Use the list of ingredients and customize them to your taste and availability of ingredients. You can use grated mozzarella cheese if you prefer. Season the rice with spices of your choice before shaping them. Use day old rice for better results. Dampen your hands in cold water before shaping the rice into balls if required. Refrigerate the shaped rice balls for a couple of hours at least. They will hold shape much better when you’re coating them in flour slurry and bread crumbs.

I prefer to not to use egg for coating or egg wash as I don’t like the “eggy” taste. So I use a flour and water slurry. Make your own bread crumbs as that coats better and produces really good texture and crispness. Tear a few slices of day old white bread into small pieces. Run them in your blender jar or food processor till they look like Panko (flaky Japanese style) bread crumbs.

You can serve these Arancini Style Rice Fritters as they are or with a sauce. Pick your sauce according to taste. If you use Indian spices, you can serve them with a spicy green chutney  and sweet and sour tamarind chutney, or even ketchup.