Rainbow Arancini

Arancini have never been more fun! Using vegetables you can naturally colour the rice and make every Arancino more fun!

For this recipe I did a red, blue and green arancino but... for other colours you can use:

• Ginger for Yellow
• Red Cabbage for Purple
• Pumpkin for Orange

For this recipe I used:

• Beetroot for Red
• Red Cabbage for Blue
• Spinach for Green

For 12 Big Arancini:

• 300 gr of risotto rice
• 300 gr of Fresh Spinach
• 1 Red Cabbage
• 1 precooked beetroot
• Ham as needed
• Cheese as needed(the cheese that you prefer)
• Parmesan as needed
• Flour
• 5 medium eggs
• Breadcrumbs
• 1L of vegetable Oil
• 50 gr of Butter
• 1 tsp of baking soda
• 1 cube of Vegetable stock

Start by boiling 1.5L of water inserting the cube of vegetable stock. Once the broth is ready turn off the stove.

Melt 25 gr of butter in a big pan (or a wok). Once the butter is fully melted add the rice continuously mixing it until the rice is a bit toasted. Start by adding one full ladle of broth and keep mixing it. Once the broth as been completely absorbed by the rice, repeat the process until the rice is fully ready (follow instruction on the package for timings, it should be around 20 min).

Once the rice is ready let it cool down.

Clean and boil the Spinach in a pan full of water with a tbsp of salt. Once the spinach are ready, drain them. Add Parmesan cheese (as much as you like, for mine I added 50 gr) and a pinch of salt. Mix everything using a mixer.

Add 1/3 of the rice cooked previously to the spinach and cook for a couple of minutes or until the spinach are fully blended with the rice.

Note: Keep mixing the rice continuously as it can stick to the pan!

Cut the red cabbage, clean is and add it to a pan with water and a tbsp of salt. Once the Cabbage is fully cooked the water in which they were immersed will be fully purple.

Take the colour water and add a tsp of baking soda, and magically the water will turn blue.

Add the coloured water to 1/3 of the rice cooked previously and cook for a couple of minutes or until the blue water is fully blended with the rice.

Note: If you prefer your arancini to be purple, then skip the baking soda!

Note 2: The boiled cabbage can be stir fry in a pan with salt, black pepper and lemon and you will have a wonderful side dish!!

Squash the precooked beetroot with a fork and add it to the 1/3 of rice left.

This time cook for 5 minutes.

Once the rice is fully cooled down is time to cut the ham and cheese in little pieces and start preparing the arancini!

Take a handful of rice and squash it into your hand. Add the cheese and the ham. Cover the half-arancino that you have now in your hand with another spoonful of rice and using your hands make a ball.

Because of the gluten in your rice, everything should be stick properly together. If you like you can freeze your arancini for 30 min and then proceed. It`s how you prefer!

Once the Arancini are ready is time to heat the vegetable oil in the pan and starting coating your arancini.

While the oil is reaching the proper temperature.

Start by covering the arancini in flour. Place then the arancini in the eggs and finally in the breadcrumbs.

Note: If you want to fry them another day you can! Just freeze them as they are and fry them from frozen!

Note 2: To check if the temperature is right, you can prepare a super tiny arancino and fry it. If it takes 2 min to be golden, then your oil is ready!

Prepare a plate with some kitchen paper towels and start fry your arancini!

Once fried (Around 2-3 min each) place them on the paper towels and pat them with some more paper towels, this will ensure that our arancini are not oily when you eat them!