Arancini

With Felicia Mohan

Felicia Mohan shares another one of her grandmother’s favorite Sicilian family recipes, fried arancini. One of Felicia’s own personal twists to this traditional recipe is to boil the rice with saffron, which makes the rice more colorful and flavorful. The inside of the rice ball is stuffed with Bolognese sauce, peas and a piece of Fontina cheese. The ball is then rolled in an egg and milk wash before being covered in the family Mudica bread crumbs. After frying in a blended olive oil and briefly cooled on a wire rack, it is served on a bed of the same Bolognese sauce and sprinkled with fresh basil.

Ingredients

1 2 pound bag of white rice
1 pinch of Saffron
3 large eggs
Egg and milk wash (2 eggs plus ¼ cup milk, whisked)
1 ½ cups freshly grated Parmesan or Romano cheese
½ cup finely chopped parsley
4 cups Bolognese Sauce
1 cup thawed frozen peas
22 ½ inch cubes of Fontina cheese
4 to 5 cups of Muddica Bread Crumbs
1 small bowl of warm water

Instructions

1. Gently fold peas into Bolognese sauce to make a meat- pea-ragu.
2. Adding Saffron to the water, cook rice according to package directions. Drain any excess water. Spread rice out onto a baking sheet to cool. When rice is completely cool place it in a large mixing bowl.
3. Add eggs, cheese, and parsley. Dip hands in bowl of water and mix well.
4. Using a large ice cream scoop, place 1 scoop of prepared rice onto the palm of one hand, and flatten out. Place 1 ½ tablespoon of meat ragu on top of flatten rice.
Place a piece of Fontina cheese on top of ragu, and top w/ another large ice cream scoop of rice. Very gently press the rice down over the ragu, cupping your hand to form a ball. (Note: If your hands become sticky at any point dip them again into water.)
5. Gently roll arancini ball in egg & milk bath then roll in Muddica bread crumbs.
6. On high heat, in a large frying pan heat 2 inches of La Spagnola (vegetable/olive oil blend excellent for frying). Fry arancini 2 to 4 minutes. Using a pastry knife or small off-set spatula, loosen ball and gently flip. Cook till golden brown on all sides. Drain on cookie rack.
7. Serve on a bed of meat-and-pea-ragu, top with fresh basil and a sprinkle of grated cheese.

Can be served as an hors d’oeuvre, snack or main course!

Recipe courtesy of Felicia (Ciaramitaro) Mohan, 2010.

From "Food For Thought" Column by Heather Atwood: Felicia Mohan lives in a sparkling new house in Gloucester, and has twin 11-year-olds: Amanda, playing 12-year-old tennis and ranked No. 32 in New England, and B.J., a catcher for AAU Baseball who will play in the Gloucester All-Star 11-year-old team. Felicia looks like a beautiful, modern mother, struggling to get her kids where they need to go while keeping up with life at home, but Felicia is also adamant about preserving her family's Sicilian heritage, particularly the dishes her grandmother, another Felicia, prepared. Felicia Mohan's grandfathers were named Joseph Salvatore Ciaramitaro — both of them, spelled the exact same way. One Joseph fished first from his boat The Benjamin and Josephine, which was sunk by a German U-boat off the coast of Maine, and then he fished from his Benjamin C, named after his father-in-law, Benjamin Cucuru. Later he founded Capt'n Joe's Lobster Co. on the wharf in Gloucester, now run by Felicia's brother, Joey, and cousin Frankie. Felicia's other grandfather owned Pat's Center Grocery, that not only sold groceries but provided all the fishing boats with food for their long trips, delivering the "speza," as the supplies were called, to each boat before it left port.
Grandpa with the wharf was married to Felicia's namesake. Holidays at this Felicia's house began a full week ahead as all the women in the family gathered at her home, which had two full kitchens, to cook together. When school let out at 3, the children went straight to Grandma's house that week because that's where their mothers were cooking. Not only were these women making all the traditional Italian holiday foods, from appetizers such as octopus salad, a standard which the men insisted upon at every holiday, to a wealth of Italian cookies, homemade bread, and New World foods such as pies, but the women were also making ordinary dinners those weeknights for all their husbands and children. Felicia and Joseph have passed away. Now, holiday meals are at young Felicia's, where 35 to 40 people come to celebrate. Felicia, like her grandmother, still sets a formal table with china and linen; her custom-built table seats 25, with two more tables in the great room for overflow, replacing her grandmother's enormous table that started in the kitchen, extended through the dining room, the hallway and ended at the living room. In her large, creamy, new kitchen, Felicia still makes dishes like braciole, spiedini, and olive gonzathe. She makes videos for this newspaper showing how to prepare her grandmother's special bread crumbs, "mudiga," with chicken and steak. This past December, Felicia gathered all the cousins together to make their great-grandmother's Santa Lucia dessert, "cuccia," a vanilla pudding made with wheatberries which the playful great-grandmother had always encouraged the children to eat in a race. Contact Heather at heatheraa@aol.com. Her blog is at gloucestertimes.com/foodforthought