Supplì alla mozzarella

« Supplì alla mozzarella », here is something I hadn’t heard about a few days ago! But thanks to Soria from Food Reporter, I discovered those Italian wonders. So « Supplì », what is that exactly? This local speciality comes from Roma. To make it simple, those are balls made of risotto, with some mozzarella in the center in that case. After that, those balls are coated with breadcrumbs and fried. The risotto can be cooked with a tomato sauce.

The recipe I propose to you is lighter than the classic one because I bake the Supplì instead of frying them. I followed Soria’s recipe and slightly modified it to make the cooking easier for me.

For 12 Supplì, you will need:

• 150g Arborio rice
• 50g parmesan cheese
• 100g mozzarella
• 1 egg
• 200g tomato purée (don’t trust the photo, I wanted to do it myself at the beginning but I was lazy and changed my mind at the last moment!)
• 1 onion (ou 2 small ones)
• 1 piece of vegetable cube
• 10cl white wine (optional)
• 20cl water (probably more)
• 2 tablespoons olive oil
• Paprika
• Basil
• Salt, pepper

For the breadcrumb dressing

• Flour
• Breadcrumbs

1^st step: cook the risotto

Dice the onion and brown it with the olive oil.

Deglaze with the white wine.

Then add the tomato purée and the spices: basil, paprika, salt, pepper. Cook the mix over low heat and put it aside.

Mix in a big frying pan: half of the tomato sauce cooked before, 20cl of warm water, the vegetable cube crumbled and the Arborio rice. Heat this mix and stir it nonstop with a wooden spoon until the rice gets cooked. If you need, don’t hesitate to add some water to complete the cooking of the rice.

It should take about 15-20 minutes but I never manage to cook my risotto in less than 35-40 minutes. If you have a piece of advice to give me, please do it!

When the risotto is cooked, add 20g of parmesan cheese. Mix and let it cool down.

2^nd step: form the Supplì

When the rice is cooled down, add one beaten egg and the 30g of parmesan cheese left.

Cut the mozzarella into cubes of about 2cm by 2cm.

If you enjoy playing with food and having hands full of it, you will like what is coming! Put a bit of risotto in the palm of you hand and add a piece of mozzarella. Add a bit of risotto on top of the mozzarella to form a ball (unfortunately I didn’t take pictures of this step; my hands were full of rice!). Do the same with the ingredients left and put the small balls you just formed aside.

Prepare 2 plates; put flour in the first one and breadcrumbs in the second one.

First roll the small balls into the flour and then into the breadcrumbs. Put the balls on a baking tray.

COOKING

Pre-heat the oven to 180°C.

Put the Supplì in the oven for 15 min!

SERVING SUGGESTIONS

Serve the Supplì hot, as soon as you take them out of the oven. I miss some knowledge about the classic side dish! This time, I accompanied the Supplì with the tomato sauce cooked at the beginning of the recipe and reheated, and also with some green salad.

Regarding the quantities, 4 Supplì per person seem to be enough (6 on the photos but that was still a bit too much ;)

TIPS AND TRICKS

As you can see on the photos, my small balls collapsed a little… so during cooking time, the mozzarella leaked a bit. I was so disappointed :( To settle the matter, I would recommend you to:

-         Dry up the risotto at the end of its cook

-         Form the small balls with a really cold risotto, after letting it for some time in the fridge.

Thanks Soria for this wonderful recipe! My Supplì are not as beautiful as yours but the next test will be nicer I hope ;)

Now you can enjoy those wonders! You will see: it’s soft, warm, appetising, and slightly crunchy. To put it in a nutshell, I love it! And I’ll do it again but following the previous advice to try to make Supplì more round and holeless after the baking ;)

Please send me your photos if you try this recipe!

Rose.

Version française disponible ici !