A New Year’s Eve Tradition!
This recipe makes a huge batch of 48 Rice Balls. You can half this recipe and still have a lot. These are very filling!
Ingredients
- 2 lbs Long Grain Rice
- 2 lbs Romano Cheese (grated. or Parmesan cheese)
- 8 Egg Yolks (reserve the whites)
- 1.5 sticks Butter
- 1/2 lb Ground Beef
- Tomato Sauce
- Mozzarella Cheese (cubed)
- Bread Crumbs
- Canola Oil (for deep frying)
- to taste Salt
- to taste Black Pepper
Step by Step Instructions
Step 1:
Cook the rice in boiling water for 18 to 20 minutes. Place on a board and add the butter. Mix thoroughly and let cool. Add salt and pepper, cheese and egg yolks.
Step 2:
In a skillet sauté the beef until brown. Add tomato sauce, and salt and pepper to taste. Mix and heat until hot.
Step 3:
Beat egg whites until frothy.
Step 4:
With moist hands, form the rice into a ball about 2 inches in diameter. Make a hole in the middle of each rice ball and place some of the filling and a piece of the cubed mozzarella inside. Press the rice over the filling to seal it completely.
Step 5:
Dip the rice ball into the egg white and then roll in the bread crumbs to coat.
1 Comment
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We’ve made these a few times now and they do bring back a lot of great memories!
I do have some recommendations if you want to give this a try. First, I recommend that you make a batch of plain, white wine risotto instead of long grain rice. The risotto is quick and easy to make in an Instant Pot and it comes out creamy and perfectly made. Refrigerate the risotto overnight and use that instead of the rice. I will update this review when I have time to post the Instant Pot risotto recipe and I will link it here. The risotto was a tastier and more authentic option then the long grain rice. Also, using the risotto we were able to do away with the egg white bath and just bread the rice balls directly.
The other thing I wanted to add some advice on was in the making of the rice balls themselves. I struggled with the process of making a ball, putting and hole in and filling it. And the end result was that the rice balls had a much higher rice to filling ration then I wanted.
The last time we made them instead of rolling out a ball I took the same amount of risotto and I flattened it out on a silicone baking mat. This way I was able to make a thin, flat circle of the risotto. I then added the cubed Mozzarella and the filling to the middle and folded up the circle to make a ball. This worked out MUCH better!