Halloween is upon us, and with it plenty of holiday parties and the return of pumpkin everything season. I love pumpkin in savory dishes, especially when combined with rich, sharp and nutty parmesan. So, I've done it two ways and this is the first. Since I'm so late getting the first post up the second will appear here in November and be a fancy little finger food to serve to holiday guests. Actually, that can easily be said of both preparations, since if you serve your guests crispy fried balls filled with gooey, creamy delicious pumpkin they may never want to leave!
The recipe I used for pumpkin risotto made three times as much as I needed for the arancini (we're only so many people and those bad boys are kind of decadent). If you're expecting lots of guests and want to use all of the risotto for arancini (we instead had it for dinner the night before), for every four Tablespoon sized balls you need 1/3 cup breadcrumbs and 1 large egg.
The risotto recipe I used is here:
http://www.bhg.com/recipe/gluten-free-pumpkin-parmesan-risotto/
But I would use less wine next time and I did use less parmesan, as well as using vegetable stock, as I didn't want the chicken flavor to overwhelm the pumpkin
Arancini:
Makes approx 12
2 cups pumpkin parmesan risotto
1 cup breadcrumbs
3 jumbo eggs
Neutral oil for frying
1. Beat the eggs in a shallow dish. Lay the breadcrumbs in another shallow dish. Form the risotto into roughly tablespoon sized balls.
2. Heat the oil to medium. Roll the risotto balls in the egg, then the breadcrumbs.
3. Fry in a single layer (may need to be in batches, depending on the size of your pan), turning every minute, until brown on all sides. Serve hot.
