Even if you don’t know what arancine is (and you probably don’t – I didn’t), doesn’t just the title make your mouth water?!
Christine found this recipe in the September 2009 issue of Bon Appetit. Granted, it’s not from one of our cookbooks, but we’re stepping outside the box. As Christine reminded me, “This blog is about two Iron Chefs – not about two cookbooks.” The Iron Chefs are, of course, us… 
Arancine are deep-fried rice balls popular in Sicily, often made from leftover risotto (which is heaven in a dish already). The cool thing about this recipe is the cube of cheese hidden in the center of the rice ball and the golden fried breadcrumbs all over the outside of it. <blissful sigh> It’s truly a labor of love, because it takes a long time to make. Not labor-intensive, but you do need about a day to get this meal on the table.
We, being the premeditated and always prepared Iron Chefs that we are, made our risotto on Wednesday, although we knew we were serving the arancine on Thursday. On Wednesday morning, we threw ourselves into our aprons and started cooking arborio rice with white wine and chicken broth. The result was mouth-watering, creamy risotto, cooked to perfection and flavored with lemon, lime, and anise seed. The recipe actually called for orange zest as well, but the lemon and lime were enough for us. They also used fennel, but we happened to have anise instead. Same difference.
So then, you’re supposed to spread out your beautiful risotto on a baking sheet and wait an hour for it to cool completely. Meanwhile, you make a milk/egg mixture, breadcrumbs, and cube some cheese. The recipe says pecorino…have you ever tried pecorino? I’m not a huge fan. It’s a tad strong for my delicate palate. Instead, we chose to use mozzarella. Perhaps our final result was not as flavorful, but we liked it better. The lesson here? Never be afraid to experiment and tweak recipes. The Makers of Recipes and Dreamers of Dreams are not infallible – your finished product may be just as good or better, or you may simply LIKE it better. Or your substitutions could be total failures and flops, in which case you might want to read some cookbooks before experimenting again. 
After the risotto cooled, we were back in the kitchen forming the balls. Christine cut the mozzarella WAY too big at first, so we had to trim the cubes down a little. We don’t need an arancine three inches in diameter, you know?? Once we got the hang of it, we were a well-oiled machine, forming, stuffing, dipping, and rolling those balls into submission. We couldn’t get over how great they looked, even uncooked!
I’ll admit it. The thought did cross my mind, very briefly, to skip the penne with spinach sauce that night and fry up our arancine instead…
…but we didn’t.
The following afternoon, we started heating up our oil. Our mom suggested using a thermometer, to ensure that the oil stayed at about 350 degrees while we fried. I rummaged around in the drawer for a while, looking for it. I found it – tiny, orange thing – but someone had left it on, and it was out of batteries. <irritated smirk> Guess not everyone can be an Iron Chef. So I thought I’d try using the meat thermometer – very high-tech thing from Williams-Sonoma – just to see where we were at. I stuck that probe in the oil and the thermometer went CRAZY. Then it occured to me that if meat/poultry/fish ever went over TWO HUNDRED degrees (let alone three hundred), it would be overdone and/or burnt. Since the oil is supposed to hang around 350, the meat thermometer *probably* wouldn’t be able to handle it. ;-S I removed it and put it away. Shh. Don’t tell anyone.
Anyway, we decided to do it “by touch”, to borrow the safecracking colloquialism. Meaning, no thermometer – just watch the frying food and adjust to achieve. 
We [gently] threw in the first five balls and watched as they sizzled. Christine is an expert fryer (is that a good thing?), and she kept the balls turning and watched carefully until they looked done. We removed them and gazed in awe at our handiwork. <WOW> If you’ve ever been to The Cheesecake Factory, and ordered their Fried Macaroni and Cheese appetizer – THAT’S what these looked like. Never have I seen anything so beautiful. Ok, that didn’t sound right. But you catch my drift.
As we continued cooking the arancine, all we could say was, “Look how beautiful they are! Wow! Look at that perfectly-browned, crispy, breadcrumb crust!” Wow!”
We were surprised that the recipe did not include some kind of sauce to serve on top, or even on the side, of the balls. As we learned in our recent reading of The Soul of a Chef by Michael Ruhlman, *everything* should be served with a sauce of some sort. Even soup – which IS sauce, by itself (a concept that never occured to me). So we couldn’t very well serve the balls DRY. We put out a bowl of marinara, but we wanted something different, eclectic, and perfectly paired with the citrus, white wine, and anise flavors. We found the ideal recipe in one of Susie Fishbein’s books. It was a mayonnaise base, with apricot and lime. Fantastic.
When it was finally time to eat, we could not believe how incredible these arancine were! I mean, really. They looked so professional, with that golden-brown, crispy exterior; warm, creamy interior, culminating with the grand finale of the melting cheese cube in the very center. <even more blissful sigh> Absolutely divine. All four family members who were privileged to be there for dinner affirmed that they could have eaten all the arancine by themselves. Including me. 
On a scale from 1 to 10: 10++.
It doesn’t get better than this, people. In fact, maybe the Iron Chefs should retire early. Quit while they’re ahead. Stay on top with an excellent reputation. I don’t know. We can’t top this. It was perfect and delicious. My mom, Christine, and I all preferred the cold mayonnaise sauce to the marinara, but vice versa with my dad. So we’ll keep both on the menu for next time. Speaking of which…when IS next time??
