Apr 15, 2025by Jeni Reeve
A crispy fried shell encasing a melty, spicy, cheesy rice centre. Perfect drenched in a nutty romesco sauce for a double peanut punch and shared with your favourite people.
Equipment Needed
1 x wide frying pan, 1 x deep frying pan, blender/food processor, bowls, plate/tray, tongs
Ingredients
- 250g Risotto rice
- 50g Butter
- 3 tbsp Hot Jalapeño Peanut Butter
- 3 Cloves of garlic, sliced
- 750ml Veg stock
- 3 tbsp Cream cheese
- 1 Bag of grated mozzarella
- 1 Egg
- 3 or 4 tbsp Cornflour
- Panko breadcrumbs
- Veg oil (for frying)
For the sauce:
- ½ Tin of chopped or plum tomatoes
- 1 Jar roasted red peppers (without the oil)
- 1 tbsp Hot Jalapeño Peanut Butter
- Juice of half a lemon
- 1 Clove of garlic
- A handful of fresh parsley
- Good glug of olive oil
- Pinch of salt
Method
- Start by making your risotto. Melt the butter in a large pan and once browned, add the rice and garlic. When the rice is lightly toasted, add in half of your stock and bring to a simmer, once the rice has absorbed most of the stock, add in the other half and then the cream cheese, stirring very regularly. As it starts to look sticky, add the peanut butter. When the rice is just al dente, remove from the heat and allow to cool completely.
- While the risotto cools, let’s make that sauce. Add all the ingredients into your form of blender and blitz until almost smooth. Simple as that.
- Once your ricey goodness is cool, stir through half the bag of mozzarella, keeping the other half for those oozey middles. Time to shape the arancini!
- Whisk up the egg in a bowl, put the cornflour in another bowl and spread your panko breadcrumbs out on a medium sized plate. Then wash ya hands and get mucky. Take a big pinch of the mixture and flatten it on your fingers. Plop a pinch of the grated mozzarella in the middle and fold up the edges before laying more rice on top (it doesn’t have to be perfect here don’t worry) then roll it in your palms and pop it on a big plate. Repeat until you’ve no risotto left. This recipe should make between 12 and 16 depending on how big ya like them.
- Take each one and coat in the cornflour, roll it around in the egg, then smush your breadcrumbs on last. Make these all up and place on another plate or tray.
- Fry time. Pour your veg oil in a deep frying pan so it sits at about 1 inch deep. Turn on a medium heat and pop a breadcrumb in so you can see when it’s sizzling. Once the breadcrumb floats and starts to fry, you can add your arancini into the pan. We’d recommend doing them in batches of 4 so none get forgotten or squashed. Fry evenly, turning every minute or so, until golden brown all over, roughly 8 minutes. Remove from the heat and pop on a plate or if you’re not tucking in straight away, onto a tray then in the oven.
- Serve them up with a little parsley garnish if you have some left, drag them, dunk them and drown them in your homemade sauce and enjoy a melty, crispy, nutty bite.
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