Roman Supplì, like their Sicilian cousins the Arancini, are very much a street food staple, enjoyed by young and old because they taste delicious and are brilliant when it comes to stopping hunger pangs in their tracks. Without ruining the appetite, either.
There was a time when a supplì and a cappuccino, standing up at the bar “Il Delfino” in Rome’s central Largo Argentina, were often what I had for lunch, followed by a cigarette. I may look back in horror at this gastronomic mash up now but neither am I totally surprised: a cappuccino and a supplì furnished just what I needed for a ‘light’ lunch that would keep me going for the rest of the day until supper. Sometimes, if colleagues and I fancied a ‘proper’ meal we’d go to Armando al Pantheon, it was just an ordinary trattoria back in the early 1980s and no one had to book the way you do now. And the “Il Delfino” bar is where my love affair with my husband really took off. So you see, I have an especial fondness for them.
I did write a post about supplì back in 2011, following the classic recipe and its ingredients. See the following link: https://myhomefoodthatsamore.wordpress.com/2011/09/06/the-surprise-in-suppli/
The recipe I am proposing today is a riff that is inspired by one I read about, done by Roman chef Arcangelo Dandini, who owns the famous L’Argangelo restaurant and who is busy in the hospitality industry and behind many openings in Rome. He is actually from the Castelli Romani, and we are even related – his grandmother and mine were cousins. What a small world. It was he who opened a place called “Supplizio”, a play on the word in Italian, in the centre of Rome, that sells only supplì basically, and very good and posh ones at that. He is famous for his supplì’s crispiness. And won’t reveal the secret, I don’t suppose. What he did reveal is that there is no need to toast the rice in olive oil – one can just toast the rice all on its own! Who knew!
I am thinking that not many of you are going to want to make supplì, and I can’t say that I blame you. It’s a long and laborious business and I end up making them only about once a year. But do trust me when I say that they are definitely worth it. And the good thing is that they can be frozen. So you can make them in advance. The recipe I am giving you yielded around 30-35 supplì; you can make one huge batch and freeze them, and enjoy them a few at a time.
INGREDIENTS
Carnaroli or Arborio rice 500g, 3 Italian sausages, 2 medium-sized onions, 2 carrots, 4 celery stalks total, 500g plum tomatoes, 160g grated parmesan, 100g butter, 2 + 1 egg (3 eggs in total), mozzarella, flour, milk, Italian-style breadcrumbs or panko, and groundnut or olive oil for frying
(1) Ingredients for the vegetable stock: 2 celery stalks and 2 carrots
(2 )Ingredients for the risotto: the rice, 2 onions, 2 celery stalks, the sausages, the plum tomatoes, parmesan and butter, 2 eggs
(3) Ingredients for the exterior of the supplì: 1 egg, flour and milk, breadcrumbs (panko)
Part I – The Vegetable Stock
Make the vegetable stock – just carrots and celery and plenty of water (no salt). It should simmer for at least 20 minutes.
Part II – The Sauce for the Risotto
Chop the onions as finely as you can, and the celery too, and sauté them in some olive oil over a low heat. This can take any time between 10 and 15 minutes. Add some vegetable stock after a while, to soften the texture.
Take the skin off the sausages.
Chop them up as finely as you can.
When the onions and celery are ready and no longer crunchy, add the sausage meat and cook it down.
After a while, add some of the vegetable stock – so that it doesn’t dry out.
Blend the plum tomatoes and add them to the mix. Simmer for about 30 minutes at least, and add salt and maybe even a teaspoon of sugar if the tomatoes are too acid. Stir occasionally.
The ragù can be made in advance. If you liked, you could wait for it to cool down and then put it in the fridge until the next day.
Part III – Cooking the Risotto
Toast the rice in a nice big saucepan. No olive oil! Just the rice. Toast it for just a few minutes or the time it takes for the rice to go pearly white. At this point switch the heat off.
Add a couple or more of the simmering vegetable stock. Watch out for the steam! Use a wooden spoon to make sure the rice absorbs this liquid and does not stick to the saucepan.
Add the tomato sauce, all of it and switch the heat on again. The rice needs to cook for about 20 minutes or however long it takes for it to be ‘done’. Keep adding the vegetable stock by and by, as required, and make sure it is always piping hot. Should you run out of stock, you can always add a little bit of boiling water.
Turn the heat off. Add the grated parmesan. Use the wooden spoon to mix it in well as it melts into the risotto. Remove the pan from the source of heat.
Crack two eggs and beat them well.
Wait for the rice to cool down a little and then add the beaten eggs.
Mix well. Taste. Yum. Job done.
And now the rice has to get really cold, not just cool.
Part IV – Resting the Supplì
I was catering a Christmas party for a friend of mine a few years ago and when I had reached the above stage in the supplì-making it was getting on for 1 a.m. and I was exhausted. So I decided to leave everything to the next morning (well, technically, it already WAS morning but you know what I mean). And so, necessity being the mother of invention, I came up with the following way of ‘dealing’ with the rice, that worked very very well indeed and that I am very happy to share with you.
Get hold of a tray. Measure out the amount of parchment paper that will cover it. Wet the paper and squeeze out the excess water and lay it over the tray.
Actually, you will need two trays for the amount that this recipe yields.
Divide the risotto in half and lay it over the two trays equally.
Spread the risotto flat, as it were. Later, you can take a knife and cut the risotto into squares, one for each supplì you will make.
Genius, no?
At this point, add another layer of wetted parchment paper over the rice, and a damp tea towel over that. The rice needs to be kept damp, so that it doesn’t dry out. I left my risotto kitted out like this, on two trays, out on the balcony all night long. It was December and acted like a fridge for me.
Part V – Shaping the Supplì
Okay. This is the bit where it takes a bit of patience – some bolstering and moral and physical support might be required. On the other hand, depending on your temperament, this could be an agreable zen activity for you. Hmm. Me? It depends. It would depend on my mood.
But the job has to be done. We’ve come this far and there’s no turning back. Avail yourself of a bowl of water.
Dip your hands in the bowl of water. That way, the rice won’t stick to them.
Spread some risotto over the palm of one hand.
Add a little chunk of mozzarella in the middle. Make sure you have allowed the mozzarella to dry a little before use. But if you’ve forgotten, it’s not the end of the world. Add it just as it is. Life’s too short.
Close your hand and then use both hands to shape the supplì into an almost oval shape. By the way, these beautiful hands belong to my daughter, and these are photos I have taken from the previous post.
Part VI – Breading the Supplì
In one bowl, the one on the left, I mixed the flour, the 1 egg and some milk together, to form a liquid mixture that will make the breadcrumbs cling to the supplì. Silly me, I can’t remember the quantities. Let’s say: 1 tablespoon of flour, 1 egg, 1 glass of milk. That should work. Alternatively, you could dust the supplì in plain flour first, and then dip it in an egg wash. That’s what I did in the previous post I mentioned.
In the bowl on the right, are a couple of supplì being plunged into the breadcrumbs. The procedure has to be done twice: i.e. first the egg mixture and then the breadcrumbs, twice.
Laborious? Are you kidding! Phaw. A labour of love.
And here they are, these beauties, waiting to be fried. Deep fried.
As it was, I decided to freeze them.
So when I do get around to frying them, I shall take a photo and add it to this post.
If any of you do decide to be foolhardy enough to want to attempt this recipe, I would love it if you wrote to me afterwards and told me how you got along. Good luck!
P.S. Please note that these supplì in particular are somewhat on the big size. When I have made smaller ones, I ended up making just under 50 supplì.
Some olive oil, chilli and garlic – classic concoction.
Rosemary needle, chopped very fine. Now that’s different where green beans are concerned.
And though I am not a huge lover of balsamic vinegar (not in salads, that is), why not? I thought to myself.
Don’t forget the salt too.
I’m not sure I would bend over backwards to serve green beans this way every time but I think the final result was pretty good.
Nothing “San Camillo” about this whatsoever. Tee hee.
I cut up some aubergines/eggplant into chunks, sprinkled salt over them and placed a plate and weight over them to help their inner liquid demon ooze out more readily. By the way, the Le Creuset-type cast iron saucepan you see? Slightly battered. So sad, I dropped it the other day and was on the brink of throwing it away but just couldn’t find the heart to do so because it had belonged to my Swedish grandmother and so it is easily close to being 100 years old. It can continue to be used in other ways.
I had left the aubergines to sweat for at least an hour and this is how much ‘stuff’ they released.
Time to squeeze the water out of them. This can be a bit of a pallaver so another good hack is to find an obliging husband to do this manly job for you.
I lay the chunks on a pyrex dish and dribbled some nice olive oil and sprinkled a little bit of salt and … yes, you guessed it. I put them in the oven to cook. (Where’s that icon for the palms of both hands resting on both cheeks in a show of amazement?). UNHEARD OF!
They cooked in the oven at 180°C for about 40 minutes.
When they cooled down, I covered them in plastic wrap and put them in the fridge. I was exhausted and went to bed.
I placed 4 tablespoons of sugar in a small pan and poured white wine vinegar to cover it by more than 1 inch. Cook the vinegar until the sugar melts and set aside.
Chop up some onions and cook over a low heat. Add a bit of salt as well as sugar.
When the onions have gone golden ..
Add some very good-quality Italian plum tomatoes. A caponata is best made with sweet fresh tomatoes but I didn’t have any on me. I used a pair of scissors to chop ’em directly in the saucepan. This is the ‘salsa’ that we are preparing, and it should cook for about 15-20 minutes.
Celery. Celery is an integral part. Pare the celery stalks, cut them up and blanch them in some salted boiling water. Drain and set aside.
Also – but I don’t have any photo – rinse some salt dried capers over and over again, and have them at the ready.
The sauce was getting a little thick and now was the right time to pour in the sweetened vinegar. Sorry, no photo of me pouring it in.
Then in go the baked aubergines.
Lots of fresh basil. Combine all the ingredients. Job done, the heat can be turned off.
One last thing. Toast some pine kernels.
Once it had all cooled down, I put the caponata in a glass container in the fridge. So the great thing about this recipe is that it can be prepared in advance.
We were getting ready for an outdoor grill with family, at my in-laws’ house in the Marche and the caponata took pride of place where the vegetable side dishes were concernerd.
I stuck some more fresh basil in the middle.
And everyone said the caponata tasted lovely.
I removed the flowers after about 15 minutes and left them to dry out for a bit. Notice how they have plumped out by a good soak in the water. Set aside.
Grate some pecorino cheese. If you can’t find pecorino, parmesan will do very nicely. Set aside.
Now add the slices of guanciale.
Give the guanciale enough time to render its fat and then add the courgettes.
Cook the courgettes until you are happy with their texture and now add some lemon zest – in slices, not cut up finely. Because you will remove the lemon zest before serving the pasta. If you are a lemon zest fiend, as Luigi the chef most definitely is, you could chop it very very finely and leave it in.
Time to add the almonds. Combine the ingredients.
Tear the courgette blossoms and add them too.
Mix them in and turn the heat off until you are ready to drain the pasta directly into the saucepan. Next time, I would add the blossoms last.
Here we go.
Add some of the pecorino and mix it in.
Taste.
Add some more. Taste.
Add a little bit more cooking water if necessary. And yes, it was necessary. It helped to make everything come together.
Enjoy some the next day on the beach – an essential secret ingredient for this recipe.
As we tucked into the dish, we commented appreciatingly about it and drew similarities to the classic Parmigiana di Melanzane.
This is how I prepped the aubergines/eggplants – I took a lot of skin off.
I sliced them length-wise and sprinkled plenty of salt over them.
I placed the slices between two large plates.
I put a heavy saucepan over the plates, to squeeze the aubergine slices and help rid them of whatever liquid in them makes them slightly bitter.
This was quite the tower I created in the kitchen, eh!, what do you think!
It didn’t take long for the aubergines to start ‘perspiring’.
So much so, that quite a lot of liquid started trickling out.
I had left (if I remember correctly) the aubergines to sweat away for one hour – and then threw away the liquid and put the slices of aubergine to rinse in a tub of cold water. I then patted them dry, or as dry as I could.
Get hold of the sweetest tomatoes you can lay your hands on, cut them in half, cut an onion in half, sprinkle plenty of salt and add a few basil leaves.
Turn the heat on and cook for about 20 minutes.
Use a food mill to strain the tomatoes.
Don’t throw the watery bit away – you can use it in another sauce. Or make a Bloody Mary with it!
Our sauce can be cooked down now. Add some olive oil.
Cook away, add some salt, taste, add a pinch of sugar if you think it needs it. Set aside.
Pour plenty of olive oil into your frying pan.
Dry the slices of aubergine as much as you can – and then get frying.
This is the busy bit: the aubergines being fried in batches, then left to drain on a colander. But it gets exciting too! Notice how little oil drips off the fried aubergines? See below.
Spoon some sauce onto the bottom of a baking dish – not a lot.
Add some tomato sauce: not too much.
Repeat until you finish all the aubergines. Add one last dolloping of the tomato sauce on top, as well as some more olive oil. Bake in an oven at 200°C for about an 40-45 minutes (maybe less? I can’t remember, sorry – but you’ll see when it’s ready).
And now … bake in a preheated oven at around 200°C for 50 minutes or until done.
Forgot to mention that I baked them with the lid ‘on’. If you haven’t got a lid you could always use aluminium foil.
Very easy to make. And the mentuccia did indeed add a little bit of ooomph.
I added the tarragon shortly after taking this photo. See below.
I added some cognac.
Once the cognac had cooked off its alcohol, I added some cream. Salt and pepper (white pepper if you have some).
Ready to be served.
It is a very old-fashioned way of cooking spinach – very rich too. We like to cook it this way at times and it seemed like just the best accompaniment for Francoise’s langoustines.
Please don’t ask me how long it took to cook the langoustines – not a long time at all. A question of minutes.
As you can see, the flesh is not overcooked, it hasn’t gone “gummy”.