Rice arancini with meatball sauce

Procedure

FOR MEATBALLS WITH SAUCE: before preparing the rice arancini with meatball sauce you must prepare the meatballs with sauce. The process is very simple: place in a bowl the ground beef, the bread wet in the water and well squeezed, the beaten egg, little chopped parsley, a spoonful of Parmigiano Reggiano cheese, salt and pepper and knead until you get a homogeneous mixture. Form many very small meatballs (you'll just need a little bit of meat) and pass in the grated bread. Fry the meatballs in hot peanut seed oil (a few seconds will be enough), drain them and set them aside.

For the tomato sauce, Finely chop the onion, brown it in a pan in extra virgin olive oil together with the chilli and add the tomato sauce. Salt and cook covered for 15 minutes, then add the fried meatballs, cover and cook for another 20-30 minutes or so.

Once the sauce meatballs are ready, you can make risotto. I suggest you prepare it a few hours in advance and store it in the refrigerator. You can also store arancini, already formed, in the refrigerator for one night so it's easier to pack them the next day.

FOR RICE: Finely chop the onion, brown it in extra virgin olive oil and little water until it is withered. Add the rice and toast it for a few minutes over low heat, stirring occasionally. Blend with white wine and let the alcoholic part evaporate. Then add some of the hot broth and a little salt and continue cooking as if it were a normal risotto. Absorbed the first part of broth, add some meatball sauce. Continue cooking by adding sauce and little broth, until you get a thick, extremely al dente risotto: to get the rice that remains al dente inside the arancini, you'll have to cook the risotto about half the usual time.

When the rice is ready, over a low heat combine the butter and parmesan cheese , adjust salt if necessary and mix well. Pour the risotto into two serve plates and spread it as thin as possible. Cover with food film and let cool completely. Store if necessary in the refrigerator.

When the risotto for the arancini will be cold, put a small amount of it on the palm of your hand and crush as you can see in the VIDEO RECIPE of the arancini with ragout. Put in the center of the rice 3-4 meatballs with their sauce, peas and cheese cut into small cubes. Cover with more rice and compact the arancino in your hands, gently pressing, so that it does not come out stuffed and the orange is compact on the outside.

Once all the arancini have been formed, store them for at least 3-4 hours in the refrigerator. You can also leave them in the refrigerator all night, so kneading them will be much easier. Put the flour in three wide plates with a pinch of salt, the grated bread and the beaten eggs with a spoonful or two of water and a pinch of salt. Wrap the rice arancini stuffed with meatball sauce first in the flour, then evenly in the beaten eggs and finally in the grated bread, gently pressing so that it adheres well.

Fry the arancini in abundant peanut seed oil or high oleic sunflower oil, at the correct temperature of 165-170 degrees (you need the usual kitchen thermometer, or you've already bought it?) so that the arancini cook slowly, in about 5 minutes, to give the cheese time to melt. Enjoy rice arancini stuffed with hot meatballs (but they're good even cold), and Bon Appetit!

MATCHING: The Sands of White Etna, Etna Doc by Cantina Firriato. A lively and mineral white, obtained from Carricante and Catarratto grapes, which are the symbolic varieties of Etna viticulture. A wine of great freshness and at the same time deep, ideal to accompany the fried and structured enough to support a recipe as complex as the arancini with sauce. Da servire a una temperatura attorno ai 10 gradi.