Giorgio Locatelli - Made in Sicily

Note: The Sicilian way is to dip the arancini into pastella (batter) before dusting them with breadcrumbs, which gives them a really crunchy outside once they are deep-fried. I know a kilo of breadcrumbs for coating the arancini seems a lot, and you won’t use them all, but you really need a big mound of them in order to roll the arancini in them and get them properly encrusted.

Arancini al sapore di mare

Seafood rice balls

Makes about 10

It’s best to cook the rice the day before you want to use it – once it has cooled, keep it in the fridge.

1.6 litres fish stock or water

500g arborio rice

5g salt

a pinch of good-quality saffron threads (about 15)

60g pecorino cheese, grated

about 1kg fine breadcrumbs

vegetable oil for deep-frying

For the filling:

5 plum tomatoes

2 tablespoons olive oil

1 garlic clove, finely chopped

½ medium onion, finely chopped

225g mixture of small pieces of white fish (swordfish, if you can find it, otherwise cod or haddock), pieces of cleaned squid or cuttlefish, and small prawns (or chopped larger ones)

120ml dry white wine

For the pastella:

350g plain flour

1 egg

Bring the stock or water to the boil in a pan, add the rice, salt and saffron, bring back to the boil and cook very slowly for at least 15 minutes, until the rice is tender and the liquid has been absorbed. Remove from the heat, leave to rest for a minute, then quickly beat in the pecorino. Set aside to cool completely.

Prepare the filling: put the tomatoes into a pan of boiling water for 10 seconds, then drain them under cold water and you should be able to peel them easily. Cut them in half, scoop out the seeds with a teaspoon, and chop the flesh.

Heat the olive oil in a large pan and cook the garlic and onion gently, until softened but not coloured. Add the seafood – the pieces of fish first, then the squid and lastly the prawns. Stir until the prawns change colour. Pour in the white wine and bubble up to let the alcohol evaporate, then add the tomatoes and cook for about 5 minutes. The mixture should be soft but not soupy. If it is a bit too liquid, cook for a little longer, to reduce and thicken it. Remove from the heat, then crush the fish lightly with a fork. Leave to cool.

To make the pastella, beat the flour, egg and water in a bowl. Have ready the breadcrumbs in a separate shallow bowl. Wet your hands to stop the rice from sticking, then take a tangerine-sized ball of rice mixture and press your thumb in the centre to make a hollow. Spoon in a little of the seafood filling, then close the rice around it and form it into a ball. Dip each one into the pastella and then into the breadcrumbs, making sure they are completely covered in crumbs and pressing them lightly, to make sure the crumbs cling.

Heat around 8cm of vegetable oil in a large pan, making sure the oil doesn’t come any higher than a third of the way up the pan. The oil must be hot, but not smoking, before you add the arancini (if you have a thermometer it should be around 170°C, otherwise test it by putting in a few breadcrumbs – if they sizzle gently the oil is ready). Working in batches (being careful not to crowd the pan or you will lower the temperature of the oil), fry the arancini for about 4–5 minutes, moving them around until they are golden all over. Drain well on kitchen paper and serve hot.

Arancini di carne

Rice balls with meat and peas

If you have any kind of leftover minced beef or pork in sauce, you can use it as a filling, rather than making it from scratch as in the recipe below.

Makes about 10

1.6 litres chicken stock or water

500g arborio rice

5g salt

a pinch of good-quality saffron threads (about 15)

60g pecorino cheese, grated

about 1kg fine breadcrumbs

vegetable oil for deep-frying

For the filling:

olive oil

1 medium onion, finely chopped

1 carrot, finely chopped

1 celery stalk, finely chopped

400g minced beef (not extra lean) or pork

sea salt and freshly ground black pepper

120ml red wine

1 x 400g tin of chopped tomatoes

50g cooked peas

100g tuma (Sicilian unsalted sheep’s milk cheese) or mozzarella, cut into small cubes

For the pastella:

350g plain flour

1 egg

Bring the stock or water to the boil in a pan, add the rice, salt and saffron, bring back to the boil and cook for about 15 minutes, until the rice is tender and the liquid has been absorbed. Remove from the heat, leave to rest for a minute, then quickly beat in the pecorino. Set aside to cool completely.

While the rice cools, prepare the filling. Heat a little olive oil in a pan, add the onion, carrot and celery and cook gently until soft, but not coloured. Add the meat, season with salt and pepper, cook for few minutes, then add the wine and bubble up to evaporate the alcohol. Add the tinned tomatoes and cook gently for 1 hour. You need the sauce around the meat to be quite thick. Set aside to cool down, then stir in the peas and the cubes of cheese.

To make the pastella, beat the flour, egg and water in a bowl. Have ready the breadcrumbs, in a separate, shallow bowl. Wet your hands to stop the rice from sticking, then take a tangerine-sized ball of rice mixture and press your thumb in the centre to make a hollow. Spoon in a little of the meat filling, then close the rice around it and form it into a ball. Dip each one into the pastella and then into the breadcrumbs, making sure they are completely covered in crumbs and pressing them lightly, to make sure the crumbs cling.

Heat around 8cm of vegetable oil in a large pan, making sure the oil doesn’t come any higher than a third of the way up the pan. The oil must be hot, but not smoking, before you add the arancini (if you have a thermometer it should be around 170°C, otherwise test it by putting in a few breadcrumbs – if they sizzle gently the oil is ready). Working in batches (being careful not to crowd the pan or you will lower the temperature of the oil), fry the arancini for about 4–5 minutes, moving them around until they are golden all over. Drain well on kitchen paper and serve hot.

PaneBread

‘Bread is life’

You cannot overestimate the importance of bread to Sicilian life; bread is life, it is right at the heart of society. There is an old proverb, ‘chi mi da il pane mi é padre’, which means, ‘who gives me bread is my father’. Even if the money that your father makes is blood money, he is still your father because he gives you bread. And bread is the most important thing. When I was staying near Mount Etna, where bread was so revered and so essential to the old diet of the mountain people, I heard a story about a brigand in the time of the Bourbons who was put in prison for contrabanding wheat, but there was a woman who set him free – this woman was described as very beautiful, but ‘a little overproved’, so even in describing the beauty of a woman a little past her youth, they use the terminology of bread.

What is exceptional is that even in the small villages you still have two, three, four bakers, and they all make a living. Where we stay, outside Menfi, we are down by the beach, with a few little roads – not even roads, really, more like tracks, leading up to a ‘square’ – not even a square, really, just where the roads meet. And even here, there is a fantastic bakery, run by an English woman who is married to a Sicilian. The first time we went in and heard her speak English, we asked her where she was from, and she told us she grew up in Norwood, in south London. It seemed so strange to find her there in the middle of nowhere, where the wind blows tumbleweed down the streets some days, as if you are in a spaghetti western. Yet here she was baking beautiful bread over the embers of olive branches in a wood-burning oven. Imagine how much it would cost you in London to make your barbecue with olive wood – but here, where there are olive trees all around that must be trimmed, it is readily available. The olive branches give a special aroma to the bread, and when you take it home and unwrap it, it smells incredible. In parts of Italy, such as Lentini, where there are almond trees all around, they use the shells of the nuts in the wood-fired ovens, which gives a different character to the bread.