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!