Scratched breadAnother Italian sign that was entertaining: scratched bread = bread crumbs. Translated from the Italian pane grattato.

Arancini di Sicilia - rice goodnessArancini con carne -a specialty of Sicily (rice balls)

What you need:

• 800g rice
• 600g tomato sauce
• 120g green peas
• 200g breadcrumbs
• 100g mozzarella cut into cubes
  
• 500g ground beef
• 3 eggs
  
• salt

Cook the rice until well done and let it cool. Mix the rice with 2 beaten eggs to make the rice easier to manage and mould into balls. Work the rice into several balls (cricket sized or baseball sized) poking a deep dimple inside it which you then fill with little bits of cheese, the cooked ground meat and the peas (you can mix these all together in a bowl first). Cover it with another bit of rice and make it into a ball as best as you can.

Roll the rice balls in the remaining beaten egg and then roll in the bread crumbs. Deep fry in vegetable oil until golden brown. Drain them on paper towels and then pop them in the oven for 10 minutes to cook them a little more on the inside. Serve hot or cold.

Delicious!

Making these arancini, is apparently a skill that takes quite a while to acquire, so if yours do not come out in perfect spherical shapes don't worry, just keep trying. We always bought ours in Sicily as my aunties said that the bakeries made them better than they would.