Tuesday, February 16, 2010


As I was trying to come up with my bento for Valentine’s Day I was trying to figure out what can I put in that is different from my usual stuff. That is when I remembered seeing an episode of Road Tasted with Bobby and Jamie Dean on the Food Network. The episode was called New York-Forgettaboutit and they went to a place called Landi’s Pork Store. At this place they are famous for a deep fried rice ball that looked absolutely delicious. Ever since then I have been trying to figure out how to make rice balls myself but could never get them to come out right until now. I owe some of my success to Claudia of What’s Cookin’ Italian Style Cuisine. She wrote a post on her Grandma Victoria’s rice balls. So I was then inspired to do my own. My recipe differs form Claudia’s and the one at Landi’s because I wanted to achieve a different taste.


Ingredients:

1 cup cooked rice
2 Tbsp Soy Sauce
1/2 cup Broccoli cooked and finely chopped
1 Tbsp Hidden Valley Ranch Fiesta Dip Mix
3 Tbsp parmesan cheese
2 Eggs
Panko Bread Crumbs
Flour
Cayenne
Cumin

Prep Note:

Cook and chop broccoli. I love that taste of my broccoli. I sauté it in butter with a little garlic powder. I use a frozen broccoli and put it in the pan frozen. Once the broccoli is coated with the butter/garlic I turn down the heat slightly and put on a lid to help it thaw out then turn the heat back up to finish cooking them. However for this recipe I only kept them in long enough to thaw them out so that they could be chopped to go in my rice mix.

Directions:

Take one cup of cooked rice. This recipe works better if the rice is left over from the previous day or even two days prior. Put it in a skillet with about 3 tsp of vegetable oil stirring constantly to heat up the rice.

Then add in 2 tbsp of soy sauce and mix together.

Once thoroughly mixed add in the chopped broccoli as well as cayenne, and cumin to taste. Remove from the heat to another bowl to cool slightly.

Once cooled add in 1 egg, the fiesta dip mix and parmesan cheese and mix well.

Roll the rice mix into 1/2 inch balls. Because this mix is very sticky I suggest that you roll all of your rice at one time before going on to the next step.

As these can be deep fried or oven cooked either method you chose should be preheated. Heat your skillet to medium and your oven (I use a toaster oven) to between 380°-400°.

As this next part can be very messy I suggest that you do this part in steps also. In a bowl put in about a half of a cup of flour. Then roll all of your rice balls in the flour before moving on to the next step. I have also found that when you let the rice balls rest after flouring them the egg and panko bread crumbs stick better.

Then take the floured rice balls and first roll them in the egg in bowl 2 and then the panko breadcrumbs in bowl three. Roll one at a time and set them aside on a plate to rest before dropping them into the hot oil.

Drop in only 4-5 rice balls at a time as they will brown up very quickly. Keep turning them in the oil till they are a golden brown. Then remove and drain.

If you are using the oven method just line them up on a pan after rolling them in the egg and panko bread crumbs, that has been sprayed with cooking spray and drizzle them with any oil such as olive oil. I did not do this with the batch that I baked and even though they still came out tasty they were a little dry on the outside.


Serve alone or with a complimentary dipping sauce like one made from the Hidden Valley Ranch Fiesta Dip mix that was used in the rice mix. Also if you have any left over they can be eaten the next day. Just place them in the oven on 380° for about 5 minutes or until crispy again. I am not sure at this point if they can be put in the freezer for later as I did not have any left over to test but when I make another batch I will test it out and update this post.

Note: Please test out the oven temperature of your own oven because I used a toaster oven for this recipe and a large oven will heat up more than a toaster oven. So all of the temperature references are according to how a toaster oven will cook.

I hope you enjoyed this recipe as much as I did making it.

I would also like to thanks Claudia of What’s Cookin’ Italian Style Cuisine for the inspiration for these rice balls.

So until next time.

Itadaki masu!


6 comments:

megan said...

this recipe looks awesome and it's so creative! i can't wait to try (maybe this weekend?)... my mouth is watering already!

Marisa Lyn said...

Hi Megan, I'm glad you like the recipe. I hope my directions are clear enough because I had to write it after I had made them. Let me know how it goes.

Tasty Trix said...

Ooh, these look absolutely crunch-tastically delicious!

Whats Cookin Italian Style Cuisine said...

Wow Congrats on this wonderful new creation! Sounds fabulous, and the picture is mouth watering you really made a great fiesta rice ball....Bravo!!!! thanks for mentioning our nana!

Marisa Lyn said...

Hey Trix, I love your adjectives. They did turn out better than expected and recrisp very esily in the toaster oven.

Marisa Lyn said...

Thanks Claudia, because I usually just put things together by taste I never realized how hard it was to write up an actual recipe. Thanks for inspiration on this one.