(Rice croquettes - Authentic Italian recipes from Sicily)

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200 g (7 oz) minced beef
2 cups of "farsumagru" cooking juice
100 g (3 1/2 oz) canestrato (matured Sicilian cheese)
55 g (2 oz) grated matured ewe's cheese
500 g (1,1 lb) rice
3 eggs
White flour
Dry breadcrumbs
Extra virgin olive oil
Lard
Salt

Time:
preparation: 40 minutes
cooking: 45 minutes
Difficulty:
medium difficulty recipe
Nutrition Facts (amount per serving):
Calories: n.c. (kCal) - n.c. (kJ)
Protein: n.c. (g)
Total fat: n.c. (g)
Total carbohydrate: n.c. (g)
Sugars: n.c. (g)

This is a world famous recipe from Sicily. Rice hides a tasty and soft filling.
Let minced beef cook in the "farsumagru" cooking juice for about 20 minutes.
Meanwhile cook rice in salted water until al dente stage according to the instructions.
Cube canestrato (a matured Sicilian cheese).
Drain rice very well and pour in a large bowl. Dress it with 2 eggs and grated ewe's cheese (Pecorino cheese) stirring all the ingredients accurately. Let rice cool and then take a handful of it, make a hollow in the centre, stuff liberally with the meat sauce and a cheese cube and close it up to make a spherical shape, the size of a tennis ball (or a little orange).
Beat the remaining egg in a dish and prepare another dish with white flour and a third one with dry breadcrumbs. Dip every rice croquette into the beaten egg, then into the flour and finally into dry breadcrumbs. Let them fry lightly in a mixture of lard and extra virgin olive oil until golden. Take away from the frying pan and put them on absorbent kitchen paper to absorb the excess of fat. Serve at once.
But if you prepare them in advance, you have to bake at 230°C (450°F) for few minutes before serving them.

Note

- You can accompany this kind of rice croquettes with a seasonal salad or another side dish for a complete meal. You can prepare them for a buffet too.
- We don't use "farsumagru" cooking juice; we make another meat sauce. In a pan we put:
2 tablespoons extra virgin olive oil, 200 g (7 oz) minced veal, 150 g (5 1/2 oz) puréed tomatoes, 1 tablespoon dried chives, a little young onion (finely chopped), 1 tablespoon chopped fresh parsley, 1 teaspoon dried bay leaves, 1 200 g (7 oz) can drained peas, 150 ml (5 fl oz - 3/4 C) red wine, a pinch of salt. We don't add water and cook over a low heat until well retired.
- We often use cubed mozzarella cheese instead of canestrato.
- We fry rice croquettes only in extra virgin olive oil whitout lard.
- It's very difficult to have the real amount of the oil and lard used for frying and the amount of white flour and dry breadcrumbs. Another ingredient whose nutrition facts can vary a lot is farsumagru cooking juice. For all these reasons we couldn't calculate nutrition facts of the traditional recipe but we calculated nutrition facts of our version (light version) without the ingredients for frying (dry breadcrumbs, white flour and olive oil).
kCal 499 - kJ 2087 - Protein 24.5 - Total fat 15.2 - Total carbohydrates 70.3 - Sugars 2.7

What's the right wine?

Our suggestion is: Etna Rosso (red wine from Sicily).