Fried Risotto Balls with Mozzarella Filling

Probably the best way to use up any leftover risotto. You can use most leftover risotto for this, but take out any larger fillings to cut them into small pieces before adding them back to the cold risotto. This to avoid the balls falling apart while forming or frying. For this recipe, I prefer the use of risotto with herbs, Parmesan risotto (then leave out the Parmesan cheese in the recipe) or mushroom risotto, but made with finely chopped mushrooms.

Ingredients:

  • 2 cups leftover risotto
  • 1/3rd cup grated Parmesan cheese
  • 1/2 tsp coarsely ground sea salt
  • 1 ball buffala mozzarella
  • 1 egg
  • 100gr fine breadcrumbs

Makes approximately 15-20

Recipe:

Drain the mozzarella from the liquid it is kept in. Cut the mozzarella into 1cm cubes. You should get about 15-20 out of one mozzarella ball.

Combine the risotto, Parmesan cheese and salt. Spread the breadcrumbs out over a plate.
Make your hands wet, this will keep the risotto from sticking to your hands like crazy, which results in the balls being torn apart while forming, or you get really big balls and you cannot get as many from a single batch.
Take a tablespoon (the baking kind of tablespoon size, else use a heaped up large teaspoon) of the risotto and push it out into a thin round on the palm of your left hand. Take a mozzarella cube and place it in the middle of the circle. Form the risotto around it, leaving no gaps. Toss the ball onto the breadcrumb plate while you make a new risotto ball. You should be able to make about 4-5 before your hands would start sticking again and you need to wetten your hands again. This would be a good time to first roll all the 4-5 balls you made around on the plate of breadcrumbs and setting the balls aside on a plate.
Now wetten your hands again to make another 4-5 balls… and so on until you run out of risotto (should you first run out of mozzarella, you can make smaller balls without filling too).

Deep fry the risotto balls, about 10 at a time depending on the size of your frying pan/deep fryer, on 180°C for 4 minutes. Drain on some kitchen paper and serve piping hot.
You can freeze them prior to frying. Fry them from their frozen state for 4-5 minutes on 180°C.