Arancina - Rice balls

Since Al and I have been together, we’ve always made Arancina, Italian for oranges, for Christmas Eve dinner.  It is a Quattrocchi tradition that he and I have taken on.  It’s really not too time consuming because we have deep fryer that fries these babies up in just a few minutes (5-7 at a time).  This year, we cut it close.  We started around noon and finished up by 1:15 p.m. NOTE:  we already had cooked the rice and filling ahead of time.

Rolling the arancina

This is really a 8-step process:

1. Make rice
2. Make filling of turkey sausage in sauce
3. Mix rice with butter, eggs and pecorino cheese
4. Scoop out filling and form the rice around it into a ball
5. Roll the ball in flour
6. Roll the ball in eggs
7. Roll the ball in bread crumbs
8. Deep fry

The last step of course is to enjoy the warm rice with the gooey cheese melted inside from the frying.  Yum!

Not bad for a Chinese girl who grew up in Iowa!