Risu O' Ragù Arancini

Preparation:

Preparation: That is: rice balls with meat sauce. The tantalizing scent of arancini, perhaps the best-known specialty of the island's rotisserie, mixed with fresh sauces from the Strait, greets every new visitor in the comfortable restaurants or snacks on the ferry ships that ply between Villa S. Giovanni and Messina. It is therefore the first greeting from Sicily for those arriving by car or train, and the first flavour, where the following influences can be recognized: the Arab one, for having supplied the rice and saffron; the French for the ragout; Spanish for tomato; and, before that, the Greek with fresh canestrato, the soft cheese which, diced, will be mixed with the ragù in the filling. Until the last century, arancini were the size of watermelons, when the monks of the Benedictine Convent of Catania fried and baked them, as Federico De Roberto tells us in his historical novel The Viceroys. Now they tend to get smaller and smaller and are pointed (those with meat sauce). Here is the recipe: boil the rice in water, never in broth, adding moderate salt and draining it al dente. While still hot, arrange it in a fountain on the marble to bind it with the grated pecorino cheese, the saffron dissolved in a cup of hot water, and two beaten eggs. When the dough is well blended, the cook shapes half of the arancino in his left hand, preparing a niche in the center to accommodate a spoonful of ragout previously made with minced meat, peas, onion, tomato and the necessary herbs. A cube of fresh canestrato cheese of about two centimeters per side is placed on this sauce, and a little pepper, if the sauce is not peppery. Another spoonful of rice covers everything and the arancino is now molded into its final shape, being very careful that the sauce does not come out. At this point it is dipped in flour, then in beaten egg and then in breadcrumbs: thus it is ready for frying, which will take place in a large frying pan with hot oil (or lard) where it will float and acquire a golden colour. Drain the frying oil and place the arancini in a baking tray (and don't serve them immediately, as most do by now), since there is still one last very refined operation: a finishing in a hot oven for glazing and drying, which gives all its unmistakable aroma to the arancino. In honor of Messina, which more than any other sister city in Sicily has promoted the arancino, we will drink the red Faro, scented with orange blossom and bergamot.