Pesto & Cheese Rice Arancini

        Pesto & Cheese Rice Arancini 

                                       

Ingredients

For the risotto (to make about 15 arancini)

- 2 cups of arborio or carnaroli rice

- vegetable broth (at least 5 cups. You can also easily make it boiling some veggies, like carrots, spinach, celery,...)

- 1/4 onion

- 2/3 cup of white wine

- 1/3 cup of gratered parmesan

- 2 tablespoons of olive oil

- 1 tablespoon of butter

To fill

- about 50g of fontina cheese

- 1 cup of pesto 

To fry

- 1 egg

- bread crumbs

- vegetable oil to fry

Make some vegetable broth using soup stock or fresh veggies. Dice the onion.

Sweat the onion with 2 tablespoons of olive oil in a pan, then add the arborio/carnaroli rice. Toast the rice and when it is dry and starts to stick on the bottom of the pan add the white wine.

Let the wine evaporate and then add a couple of ladles of vegetable broth and bring to simmer. Shake the pan and stir until the broth is incorporated. Then add the broth ladle by ladle until the rice is cooked al dente. Do not overcook the rice! It will cook a bit also while frying!

Cut a piece of butter and grater the parmesan. Add them in the risotto and stir

Let the risotto cool. To make this process faster you can spread the risotto on a tray and leave it in the refrigerator.

Meanwhile, prepare the pesto (if you don't have it ready and cut the fontina cheese. Once the risotto in cold spread a table spoon in the palm of your hand, add some cheese

a teaspoon of pesto and with your finger close it making a ball. You should see a short video playing, to see how Rocco made it. If you don't see it, click on the video square.

You should make about 15 arancini, they shouldn't be bigger than a golf ball. Warm up a pan with 3 fingers of vegetable oil. Preparein a plate the bread crumbs.

Beat one egg in another plate. Roll each arancino in the egg and cover it with bread crumbs.

Press gently in your hand the arncini so they won't lose the ball shape while frying. 
To see if the oil is warm enough put a small piece of bread and see if it frys correctly. Then deep fry the arancini.

Prepare some paper towels on a plate and let they absorbe the extra oil of the arancini. Check the arancini while frying (it won't take more that 3-5 minutes to get ready) and flip them if needed to get a uniform nice brown color.

Serve the arancini warm as appetizer, better with a glass of wine!