I was first introduced to these by my lovely Italian neighbour and omg were they good and my kids loved them too. I wanted to have a go at making some myself, but also wanted to make them slightly healthier too, as the normal version are deep fried. These baked ones were delicious and my youngest (14 months), ate almost two of the balls all to herself. She really loved them.

Baked Arancini

Makes approx 10 balls

Ingredients

• 1 cup (240ml) of arborio rice
• 1 small onion, finely chopped
• 2 baby bella mushrooms, finely chopped
• 2 cloves of garlic, crushed
• Italian mixed herbs
• no salt chicken stock (approx 800ml)
• 4 slices of whole wheat bread (lightly toasted and blitzed into breadcrumbs
• 60g of parmesan cheese
• black pepper
• 1 egg, beaten
• for the filling I used some leftover bolognese from this recipe here  and mixed in a few frozen peas. (You only need about a heaped teaspoon of bolognese per ball)
• Olive oil

For the sauce:

• 1 small onion, finely chopped
• 2 cloves of garlic, crushed
• 1 cup (240ml) of passata
• 1/2 cup (120ml of salt free chicken stock)
• Olive oil

Directions

Place your stock and Italian mixed herbs into a saucepan and keep on a low heat.

Drizzle a large frying pan over a medium high heat with some olive oil, add your onion, garlic and mushrooms and fry until softened, mix in the arborio rice and start adding your stock a couple of ladles at a time.  Repeat the process until rice is nice and creamy, but still has a slight bite to it.

Add the rice to a bowl, mix in the parmesan and beaten egg and set aside to cool.

Preheat oven to 200c or 400f (gas mark 6)

Place your breadcrumbs in a deep dish and season with some black pepper and then you can start the process of making the arancini.

Get about 2 tablespoon of the risotto mixture in your hands and flatten it down so you have a kind of pancake. Place one heaped teaspoon of your bolognese mixture into the centre of the pancake, and then carefully bring the rice up and around the mixture and form into a ball. Place in the breadcrumbs and roll to evenly cover and then place on a baking tray greased with some olive oil

Repeat the process with the rest of the mixture. You should get approx 10 balls.

When all mixture is gone, go back over all the balls just to make sure they are firmly closed up and roll them through the remaining breadcrumbs again.

Place back on the tray and bake for approx 30 mins until lightly golden all over (you will need to rotate them at least once half way through the cooking time.

While they are baking you can make your tomato sauce.

Drizzle a frying pan over a medium high heat  with some olive oil, add your onion and garlic and fry until lightly golden. Add the passata, stock  and splash of balsamic vinegar and bring to a boil, reduce heat and simmer until sauce has thickened.

Serve your balls with the sauce.

For a meat free version you can fill with a filling of your choice or some of my lentil bolognese recipe here