Sicily: Mt. Aetna and Perfect Arancini

Mt. Aetna on a nice day

A few years ago visiting Sicily, we took a bus from Taormina south to Mt. Aetna. We left wearing tee shirts and shorts;  en route, we layered on sweatshirts, sweaters and long pants, forewarned about wintry temperatures on the mountain.  At the base of the volcano, in addition to tickets for the Funivia, a cable car, we were offered and accepted parkas–a good move.

Who put the fun in Funivia?

The Funivia lifted us up and over mountains and dropped us where four-wheel vehicles were waiting to drive over a moonscape of craters and black, nubby lava.  Then we hiked about a half-mile in snow.  (I had on sneakers unlike some climbers with only clogs or sandals and cold feet.)

A few hundred feet from the summit, steam poured out of vents in the rocks, proof of Aetna’s internal activity. The heat on my hand held over a hole felt like water from a boiling kettle.

On the return Funivia ride I met a teen-aged boy and his mother going to rendezvous with her Sicilian family. Tom, the son, had a personal mission:  a search for the best arancini, the ubiquitous Sicilian snack made of rice, wrapped around a little meat with a few peas and crisply fried. (Arancini means little oranges but most I’ve eaten were far smaller.)

Tom confessed he sampled arancini every chance he got, sometimes eating at six or seven places a day. (Teen-aged boys don’t obsess about weight.) When I asked which ones he’d most enjoyed,  Tom leaned towards me and lowered his voice. This was top secret info.

“Are you going to Cefalu?”

“Absolutely.”

“Try the arancini they sell at the square in front of the cathedral. They’re fabulous, “he said. “My mother thinks that her mother’s version is the best in Sicily but I don’t want to start a family war.”

A week later, in the windy square in Cefalu, we gorged on arancini. Tom was right; they were terrific, crisp and greaseless outside with a delicious filling.

To experience Sicilian food in New York, drop into Nica Trattoria on East 84^th Street. A few caveats:  it’s not inexpensive and it’s cash-only. However, the welcome is exuberant, the food fabulous and everything is made to order. The chef/owner, delightful Giuseppe Nicolosi,

gave me a recipe for fresh sardines a Beccafico (this translates as Warbler, as in the bird. Nothing birdlike about what he served.) However,  his handwritten recipe in Italian flummoxed even a fluent friend. Thus, we have a recipe for Arancini a la Siciliana (which our chef points out is strictly a peasant food.)

Arancini a la Siciliana

1 ½ cups long grain rice

¼ cup butter

2 T Parmesan cheese, freshly grated

Scant ½ cup ground beef (my guess is this is less than ½ pound)

Scant ½ cup white wine

2 T tomato paste

3 1/3 oz mozzarella, diced

2 eggs

½ cup flour

Vegetable oil for frying

Cook rice in boiling, salted water 15-18 minutes or until tender. Drain, put into a bowl and stir in half the butter and the Parmesan—then spread rice out on counter and let it cool.

Melt remaining butter in large pan, add beef and cook, stirring often, until meat is fully browned. Sprinkle in the wine and cook (about a minute) until it evaporates.

Stir in tomato paste, cover and cook over low heat for 15 minutes. Season with salt and remove from heat.

Shape cooled rice into little balls (roughly golf ball size) and hollow out the centers. Fill with a little meat sauce, 1-2 cubes of mozzarella and seal with more rice.

In shallow dish beat eggs with a pinch of salt . Put flour in another shallow dish and dip arancini first into beaten eggs, then into flour. Shake off any excess. Heat oil in a large pot and test –it’s hot enough when a cube of bread browns in thirty seconds. Fry arancini in oil until golden brown all over. Drain on paper towels and serve.

Full disclosure: I haven’t made these due to fear of frying. I do order them in restaurants!

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