SRC October: Zesty Sicilian Rice Fritters

It's Reveal Day for the Secret Recipe Club Group A!  My favorite day of the month!

This month I had the pleasure to be assigned the blog Recipe Taster.  I was unfamiliar with Al's blog, but quickly fell in love with it.  Al presents food in a sophisticated and artistic way - every plate, I am mesmerized by the artistry and creativity that unfolds.  And not to mention my mouth just completely waters at every sight!

I was really craving something new and sweet, so when I saw these rice fritters, I knew I had found my match!  It's basically little balls of sweet and delicious rice pudding, deep fried, and drizzled with a delicious orange honey sauce.  Yeah, I had to work out extra hard after having quite a few of these babies! 

Ingredients:
Recipe adapted from Recipe Taster's blog

Fritters:

150g short grain rice, as for rice pudding
400g milk
150g cream
zest from 1 orange
zest from 1 lemon
3 & 1/2 tablespoons sugar
1 egg
1 teaspoon baking powder 
Vegetable oil, for frying

Honey sauce:

6 tablespoons honey
juice of 1 orange
1/4 teaspoon cinnamon


In a medium saucepan, bring the milk and cream to a simmer.  Stir in the orange zest, lemon zest, rice, and sugar.  Bring back to a simmer, stirring every now and then.  Cover with a lid and turn the flame to low.

Stir the rice pudding occasionally to be sure it doesn't stick to the bottom.  This will become particularly important toward the end of the cooking process when the pudding will become thicker. If the pudding becomes too dry before the rice is cooked, add extra milk.

The rice is cooked when the pudding looks quite dry and thick. Turn off the heat and let it come to room temperature, stirring it every now and then.

In a separate bowl beat the egg with a fork and mix in the cold rice pudding a little at a time, breaking all the clumps.

In a deep enough pot, bring 1inch of vegetable oil up to frying temperature (180C should suffice). When the oil is almost ready, stir the baking powder into the rice mix. Using two spoons scoop some of the rice batter and shape it into quenelles or little balls.

Fry until golden brown, about 2-3 minutes.  Drain on a paper towel-lined plate. 

To make the sauce, combine the honey, orange juice, and cinnamon in a small saucepan under medium heat.  Stir until flavors meld together, about 3-5 minutes.

Drizzle sauce on top of fritters and dust with powdered sugar.  Enjoy!

Thanks Al for this sweet and tasty treat!

Want to join SRC?  Find out how, here!

When life gives you lemons...

... you take pictures of them.

Yeah, taking the night off from a recipe post.  Just thought I'd share with you some citrus!

Be back tomorrow for regularly scheduled programming...

(Louisville) Cardinal Punch

Maker's Mark glasses: require a bit of bourbon!

It's raining today.  In fact, it's been raining consistently for the past week.  It's really cramping my style.  Especially since our volleyball courts have flooded and the games were cancelled.  I was really looking forward to playing in the sand tonight.  Who cares about safety, right?  Well... see, the rain is even making me think crazy thoughts!  Safety is more important, so I guess it's for the best.  But seriously... the rain needs to stop. 

Anyway, I was off from work yesterday and got a lot of food/drink related things done.  This punch was one of those things.  It actually stopped raining momentarily.  It gave me enough time to go out back on the deck and take some pictures.  And then my camera battery died.  Seriously.  FML.

But rain and a dead camera battery (which is now fully charged, thank you) aren't reasons enough to complain.  Life ain't so bad.

And this punch proves it.  Easily adaptable to be an "adult" beverage (throw in some bourbon and you've got yourself something delicious), but delicious enough on it's own, sans-alcohol.  And I don't know if the University of Louisville Cardinals have an official drink or not, but the punch definitely has the team colors going on. 

Ingredients:

Adapted from the 1945 Edition of the Boston Cooking School Cookbook

2 cups cranberries (the last of my frozen babies - until next fall!)
3 cups water
1 cup sugar
1/2 cup orange juice
Juice from 1 lemon
1 can of ginger ale (Ale 8 is the best!)

In a medium saucepan, cook the cranberries in 2 cups of water until they are soft, about 10 minutes or so.  Drain the liquid into a juice pitcher through a metal strainer or cheesecloth.  Discard solids.

In a small saucepan, make a simple syrup by boiling sugar and remaining cup of water for about 5 minutes, stirring to dissolve sugar.  Add syrup to the cranberry juice in pitcher and place in refrigerator to chill, about 15 to 20 minutes.

Add in orange juice, lemon juice, and ginger ale.

Fill glasses with ice and pour punch over top.  If you're feeling up to it, splash a little bit of bourbon or vodka in there, too.  Or not.  It's up to you! Oh, and if you didn't want to go through the whole making your cranberry juice sort of thing (especially if you didn't hoard any in your freezer, like I did), you could always just get cranberry juice (you'll need about 3 cups) from the store - just skip down to adding the orange juice, lemon juice, and ginger ale step if you do.

Hope you guys have a good rest of your Wednesday!  I'm off to study for my last final ever.... well, in a traditional college course, that is.  Until September when my finals will be Culinary School-related...