Friday Recipe: da Flora’s Arancini with a Spicy Aioli
All of those who gathered at my private Sunday dinner at da Flora raved about our il pranzo. The women at da Flora were at the top of their game!
Jen, the genius in the kitchen, shared a couple of her recipes. Here’s my adaptation of her arancini and spicy aioli recipes. These rice balls and aioli are easy to make and are absolutely delicious.
Fresh Oregon Bay Shrimp Arancini
Ingredients
- 1 cup cooked arborio rice
- 1/2 cup chopped fresh Oregon bay shrimp. You can substitute other shrimp or prawns.
- Zest of one lemon.
- 2 tablespoons Dijon mustard
- 1/4 cup chopped flat leaf parsley
- Sea salt and freshly ground black pepper to taste
- 2 egg whites
- 1 cup panko (in a pinch use plain breadcrumbs)
- 1/2 cup EVOO
- 1/2 cup canola oil (or your favorite frying oil)
Cooking Directions
- Heat the oven to 350 degrees.
- In a bowl mix all the ingredients (except the egg whites and panko) together.
- Form the mixture into balls about 1 Inch in diameter.
- Put the egg whites and panko into separate shallow bowls.
- Roll the rice balls in egg whites
- Then roll the rice balls in the panko.
- Heat the oil in a pan until it gently ripples.
- Fry the rice balls in the hot oil until golden brown all over.
- Drain on paper towel.
- Put the fried rice balls in a baking dish and bake them in the oven for about 10 minutes.
- Serve immediately with the spicy aioli on the side.
- You should get about 20 rice balls from this recipe.
Spicy Aioli
Ingredients
- 4 egg yolks
- 1 tablespoon Dijon mustard
- 2 cloves garlic
- juice of 1 lemon
- 1/2 teaspoon paprika
- 1 pinch cayenne pepper
- sea salt and freshly ground black pepper to taste
- 1 1/4 cup EVOO
Cooking Directions
- Mix all ingredients except the EVOO in food processor or by hand.
- With the processor on pour in the EVOO slowly until you achieve a thick but still loose consistency and all the oil is fully incorporated.
- Serve the aioli as a dipping sauce on the side of the arancini.
More photos from the exclusive dinner event at da Flora…
Forgive me, this is probably a stupid question, but I’m assuming the shrimp is raw to start?
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Yes the shrimp is raw to start. These are small arancini so the shrimp will fully cooked when taken out of the oven. If you are making larger arancini you may want to cook the shrimp first.
It was all quite delicious! Thanks Gianni!