Roman "Telephone Style" Fried Rice Balls

Otherwise known as Supplì al Telefono. Yes, today's lesson is "How to Make Supplì." Supplì (soo-PLEE) are a traditional Roman appetizer and snack, a fried rice ball stuffed with mozzarella. Why are they often known as "al telefono"? Because legend has it that when you bite into a good supplì, the mozzarella strings out like a telephone line. Personally, that very rarely happens to me, but it's still a creative name, no?

Now, don't confuse the supplì with their southern cousins known as arancini (ah-rahn-CHEE-nee). What's the diff? Roman supplì are fried tomato-flavored rice balls filled with mozzarella, while arancini hail from Sicily and are often a larger, almost pyramid shape, with saffron-flavored rice, meat, mushrooms, and peas.

I'm certainly not the authority on either of these, but here I'll share how we make them in our house. Everyone has their own variations, but ours are pretty simple: rice and mozzarella. No formal recipe here. I'll just show you what we do:

What you’ll need:

Rice
Tomato puree
Mozzarella
2-3 Eggs, beaten
Breadcrumbs
Oil for frying

1. Make the sauce and rice

We use arborio or carnaroli rice—cook it and drain it. At the same time, cook the tomato sauce in another pan using "passata di pomodoro," a tomato concentrate/puree. We don’t do anything fancy for the sauce; we just put some olive oil in the pan, add a bit of onion and sauté it, then add the tomato sauce and let it simmer.

2. Combine sauce and rice

When the rice is cooked, add it to the sauce mixture. You shouldn’t have a soupy texture, you want just enough sauce to coat the rice. Mix it all together and let it cool so that it becomes sticky.

3. Prepare other ingredients: mozzarella, egg mixture, breadcrumbs

Cut the mozzarella into small cubes. Beat the eggs in a bowl. Pour the breadcrumbs into another bowl.

4. Make the rice balls

When the rice has cooled, form small egg-shaped rice balls, making a small indention in the center where you’ll add a bit of mozzarella. In this photo you'll see the rice ball is already covered with breadcrumbs which was a mistake we learned from—too much breadcrumbs means the supplì comes out too dry, so don't be tempted to roll it in breadcrumbs first in order to make it more manageable. If the rice has cooled sufficiently, you shouldn't have problems getting it to form the right shape.

Then cover the mozzarella with some more rice and carefully dip the rice ball in the egg mixture, then carefully roll it in the breadcrumbs.

Really, folks, that’s pretty much all there is to it—all that’s left is to fry them. If you have a fryer you can use that:

If not, you can create your own fryer by filling a large pot with oil and frying them in that. Here's the crispy, golden-brown finished product, which I like to call "Dinner al Supplì":

Ok, I realize that I’m not that good at recipes. The reason is that Ale never uses measurements so I either have to guess or just be generic like I am here. If you want a more professional opinion, check out the recipe from Mario Batali of the Food Network or Kyle Phillips’s from About.com’s Italian Food site. One tip I liked about the About.com recipe is the idea to roll the rice balls in flour before the egg mixture, to keep them from falling apart and help keep your hands from getting too sticky.

Try these out, they really aren't that difficult and make great snacks. We made a bunch of them and froze them so they are ready to pop in the ol' fryer whenever we want. In Rome they cost about 80 euro-cents each and you'll find them at places that sell pizza al taglio (fast-food pizza) or in pizzerie as an appetizer. Buon appetito!