Recipe: These Addictive Arancini are Made With Lots of Cheese and Za’atar
Ella Aflalo, chef in residence at the Luma Foundation in Arles, shares the recipe for her inimitable arancini with scarmoza, honey-mustard-dill sauce.
"Colorful, lively and fragrant": this is how Ella Aflalo defines her cuisine, inspired by her Levantine origins. It includes inventive Mediterranean dishes such as mussels with harissa, saffron tarts, babkas... Discover here the recipe for her arancini, from her cookbook Sol, published by First in 2022.
Arancini with scamorza, honey-mustard-dill sauce
This is the recipe for 6-8 arancini, ready in 50 minutes, and rest 2 hours.
For the Risotto
250 g risotto rice (arborio)
1 l vegetable stock (or 2 vegetable stock cubes)
1 yellow onion
10 cl white wine
½ lemon confit
1 c. tablespoon zaatar
100 g grated Parmesan cheese
1 c. tablespoon olive oil
15 g soft butter
200 g scamorza (to garnish arancini)
Fine salt and pepper
Honey-mustard sauce
100 g semi-strong mustard
50 g honey
¼ bunch dill
Breadcrumbs and baking
200 g panko breadcrumbs
200 g flour
3 eggs
1 l frying oil
Zaatar
Fine salt
Making the risotto
Heat the vegetable stock in a large saucepan over medium heat, or dilute the stock cubes in 1 l of water.
Finely dice the onion and lemon confit (3 mm cubes). Heat the tablespoon of oil and the butter in a large, rimmed frying pan. Add the diced onions and lemon confit and sauté over low heat until the onions are translucent.
Add the risotto rice and stir continuously. The grains should lose their opaque appearance. Deglaze with white wine and cook for 2 minutes until reduced. Add a ladleful of hot stock and stir. Once the broth has been absorbed by the rice, add another ladle until the broth is used up (about 20 minutes). Once the risotto is cooked, add the salt and pepper, zaatar and Parmesan. Taste and adjust seasoning if necessary.
To form the arancini, the rice must be cold. Let cool to room temperature, then chill for at least 2 hours in the fridge.
Cut scamorza into 1 cm cubes. Shape the cold risotto into 80 g balls and enclose a cube of scamorza in each ball. Set the balls aside in a cool place.
Making the honey-mustard sauce
Sort the dill, keeping only the sprigs, and chop them finely. In a small bowl, combine the mustard, honey and chopped dill.
This recipe originally appeared on Architectural Digest France