- wearegoodatthis
Can I Make Indian Arancini?

This Tasty YouTube video with Indian-inspired recipes all looked delicious, but especially the cheesy Indian-inspired arancini, so I wanted to make them. It seemed like a fun way to eat Indian food.
Arancini are Italian risotto balls that typically have cheese and/or meat inside them. They made Leftover Curry Chicken Cheesy Balls. I decided to put Chicken Tikka Masala in mine. :)
Sunday, December 1, 2019, Attempt #1:
In the video, they suggest making this recipe if you have leftover take-out curry chicken and leftover Basmati rice. I decided to make it with a frozen chicken tikka masala dinner.
Basically, you are making a cheesy risotto ball with chicken inside as the filling.
Some other adjustments I made were that:
1.) I supplemented the Basamati rice in the frozen meal with some sushi rice I made because sushi rice is sticky.
I had previously used sushi rice when making a mini-version of Sartu di Riso (risotto cake), an Epic food on a Tasty YouTube video, because it has a similar stickiness to arborio rice; it worked well (see link).
https://www.wearegoodatthis.com/post/can-i-make-mini-sartu-di-riso
2.) I added some rotisserie chicken in with the chicken in the frozen dinner to make more filling.
3.) I didn't have shredded cheese, so I made some by shredding string cheese myself.
I just tore thin pieces of string cheese and cut them smaller. Voila!
4.) I used Panko breadcrumbs; they used regular breadcrumbs.
Panko is nice and crunchy for fried things, but both are good.
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What I used:
Cheesy Risoto Balls and Filling
- Sukhi's Chicken Tikka Masala frozen dinner
- Rice is probably ~1/2 cup
- Sushi Rice (~1 cup cooked)
- 3/4 cup of flour
- 1 whole egg
- 3 string cheese (hand-shredded)
- a little bit of rotisserie chicken
(to make more filling; hand-shredded; no skin)
Breading
- Flour
- 3 whole eggs
- Panko breadcrumbs
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Making the Cheesy Risotto Balls

First, I made some sushi rice and microwaved the Sukhi's Chicken Tikka Masala frozen dinner.
After the rice was cooked (sushi rice on the stove and Basmati rice in the microwave), I mixed both of them together and I put it in the fridge while I was preparing other things. The rice mixture has an egg in it and I didn't want the egg to scramble.
For the cheesy rice mixture, you put the rice, 2 tablespoons of sauce, cheese, flour, whole egg in a bowl and mix it together.
Note: In their recipe, they said to only use the egg yolk for this part, but when I had added only the egg yolk, it did not seem like it was cohesive enough to stay together in a ball, so I added the egg white and it seemed to be a better consistency.
Making the Chicken Tikka Masala Filling I added some rotisserie chicken in with the chicken in the frozen dinner to make more filling. I cut the pieces of chicken in the frozen meal smaller and I shredded the rotisserie chicken into small pieces, so they would fit in the cheesy risotto balls. I made sure they were all coated in sauce.
Putting them together -- Cheesy Risotto Balls plus Chicken Tikka Masala filling
I took some rice in my hand and then put a little chicken in and then took more rice to form a ball. You don't want to put too much filling in or it will fall apart.
Breading
I set up a breading station on my stove, haha. :) Flour, then egg, then Panko breadcrumbs, then egg (again), then Panko breadcrumbs (again).
Good breading technique that I've seen on the Food Network is to only use 1 hand with breading and keeping your other hand clean, which is also good for taking photos of what you're doing. Haha. :)
While I was setting up the breading station, I put the risotto balls in the freezer, so they could set up a little bit. This wasn't in the recipe/video and may not be necessary.

As noted above,
The order of breading for the recipe is:
1.) Flour
2.) Egg
3.) Panko breadcrumb
4.) Egg (again)
5.) Panko breadcrumb (again)
While I was dipping an individual ball, I actually left the others in the freezer so they could stay set up because I thought they might fall apart if they were at room temperature. This may not be necessary.
This is what they all look like after breading.

I got a small pot of oil going to medium-high to fry them up. I used a small pot of oil, so that when I poured oil in it, it would come up higher and cover most of the sphere (vs. if I used a bigger pot and poured the same volume of oil).
I actually put them in the freezer again while the oil was heating up. I only cooked 5 of them; I put 8 in the freezer to eat later.
I only cooked them one at a time, so that the oil wouldn't lower in temperature and they wouldn't get soggy.
I also did something I've seen on some Twisted YouTube videos. After I put one in the oil, most of the sphere would be cooking, except for the top. So I spooned hot oil on top of it to kind of cook the top before I flipped them.
RESULT: Success! :)
We are good at this! How good does that look? Look at that cheese pull! Haha. :) That's one of the things I like to watch on these sped-up cooking videos on YouTube and also the pouring of ganache on a cake.
There are 4 photos down there.
They taste really good too! It's really fun to make and really fun to eat and actually they are really filling. It's a fun way to eat Indian food.
Give it a try! We are good at this!

