Supplì al Telefono

Small fried rice balls filled with a rich tomato and meat sauce and hot, racy mozzarella

5 from 1 vote

Prep Time 30

Cook Time 2 30

Resting Time 2

Total Time 5 30

Course Appetizer

Cuisine Italian

Servings 25 supplì

Let's start by preparing the soffritto for our sauce. Cut roughly the celery, carrot, onion and garlic and put it in a food processor for a few seconds. If you don't have one, you can use a grater for the celery and carrot and just diced garlic and onion very finely. Heat the olive oil in a pot while you do that, making sure that the flame is not very high or it'll burn. Add it to the pot and let it soften for approximately 10 minutes or until the onion gets translucent.
If you're using mince, just sit and wait for the soffritto to be soft. If you're using diced beef and have a cleaver, start mincing it and make sure that there are no chunks. Once it's minced and the soffritto has softened, add it to the pot with the minced dried mushrooms and let it brown.
Once it's browned (10-15 minutes roughly), add the half glass of dry white wine and let it evaporate completely. Then add the 500 gr of tomato sauce. Mix all together, cover, and let it cook for 2 hours on a very low flame. Stir occasionally and make sure that it doesn't stick to the bottom of the pot.

Let's start by cutting the mozzarella into 1-1.5 cm bites and let it drain in a strainer. This will prevent the suppli to get soggy later on. Just leave it on the side, we'll come back to it later.
Start preparing the beef broth so that when we need it it's going to be nice and hot. In the meantime, grab a pan and toast the 500gr of risotto rice for 5 minutes. Once toasted, add to the pot where you're cooking the sauce.
Add 1.5 cups (325 ml) of beef broth to the pot with the rice and the sauce and mix all together. Let it absorb completely before adding another cup. Add another one, let it absorb, and so on. Cook the rice according to the cooking instructions (should be around 15-20 minutes). The rice should be simmering at all times. Make sure that there is not too much broth or that the rice is not too dry - you don't necessarily have to use all the broth! - and when it's cooked, turn the flame off and add the 80gr of Parmesan. Mix it well.
Take a big sheet of baking paper and pour the rice over it to cool down completely - try and spread it as thins as possible, so that it cools down faster. Alternatively, you can use silicone mats or just pour it over the counters, just make sure to not use tin foil as it'll keep the heat in.

Once the rice has cooled down completely, take a bit and shape it as a cylinder. Each suppli should be approximately 8 cm long and 3 cm wide. Once you have them shaped, take one bit of mozzarella and push it inside the suppli. Shape it back to the cylindrical form, making sure that the rice is holding tightly together. This will prevent the suppli to fall apart when you fry it.
Prepare two bowls, one with two beaten eggs and one with at least 150-200gr of breadcrumbs (you might need more, or less, there's no exact amount so keep it next to you).
Take your first suppli, roll it in the beaten eggs and then roll it in the breadcrumbs. It must be fully covered. Repeat the process for all of them.
Heat up the vegetable oil in a wok or pot of preference for frying. Once the oil gets to 180° Celsius (or 350° Fahrenheit), add the suppli carefully. You can fry how many you have space for, but make sure to not overcrowd the wok/pot. Take them out when the coating gets nice and golden.

Keyword Finger Food, Fried Food, Street Food, Traditional Roman