Italian Street Food

I'm sure many things come to mind if you imagine Italian street food. Particularly from a food truck. Well, what we imagine probably is nothing like what they serve up in Catania. 

They are sandwich trucks. Behind the counter you see rotisseries with golden chickens, trays of potatoes roasting underneath them, catching all those food juices, ... And a grill for hamburgers and hot dogs. 

They love hotdogs. Theirs don't have all the nastiness that comes to mind when we think of hotdog ingredients. They're so tasty. 

They're split down the middle, grilled,  and lain on a split Italian hard roll. Then you have your choice of toppings. 

Those are behind the glass. Behind the glass are probably twenty different toppings in shiny flat oval shaped plates. You have no idea what they are but it's really interesting watching a 9 year old boy point out all the unusual vegetable and meat toppings he wants on his hotdog. 

The standard though is:

Bread, hotdog, a pile of French fries, a good squirt of mayonnaise, and a good squirt of ketchup. Set in a paper boat, or wrapped in foil, and there you go. Yum. Take a bite with all those things in it. Messy and good. 

Better still is my nephew's favorite: 

Bread, hot dog, mustard, salsa capricciosa (pickled julienne carrots and cabbage in a mayonnaise sauce), whole kernel corn, French fries and sometimes ketchup or barbecue sauce. (Pictured here)

Other toppings (yes, ON the hot dog) include: eggplant Parmesan, tuna sauce, shrimp sauce with baby shrimp, aurora sauce, grilled steak rolls with provolone, and of course lettuce tomato and onion. 

The sky is the limit here. Grab a coke or an aranciata (fizzy orange juice...NOT a Fanta) and you're set for an evening out, maybe by the Mediterranean with the lights shining on the cobblestones. 

Slow Fast Food~ Arancini

Arancini,snack,Italian,rice

No they're not oranges. Just shaped like them. And they're amazing. REALLY amazing.

Italians don't eat much fast food. They eat faster slow food. Their gas stations on the autostradas have delis that sell sandwiches whose ingredients took from 6 months to 20 years to prepare. Quality aged true prosciuttos and parmesans will never be sold in our fast food factories.

Arancini (ah-rahn-chee'-nee) are the traditional portable food of Sicily. It's the land of oranges and they make these delicacies portable the same way oranges are. They normally are balls of saffron rice filled with a bit of stewed meat, a piece of cheese and a sprinkling of peas. Many varieties are available though and I have to say that I prefer those over the traditional. In Catania there are hole-in-the-wall shops that specialize in dozens of kinds of just arancini. Our most recent trip ended there one of the last nights. We had Pistachio arancini and sugo arancini for dinner, and ended with nutella arancini for dessert! Here are a few of my faves...

Mushroom
Pistachio
Smoked salmon and cream
Butter
Tuna
Sugo (meat sauce)
Spaghetti and tomato sauce
Even nutella and hazelnut!

They're not hard to do but they take planning. The easiest way is to have the rice done and the filling done. Maybe through the week save bowls of pasta sauce, meatballs, chopped veggies... Then on arancini day just make rice, assemble and fry. It's a fun dinner party idea as well...DIY appetizers?

Arancini
4 cups cooked sticky rice, any rice that's barely sticky. Maybe cook your normal rice with a tad extra water.
1 cup filling
1/2 cup parmesan
Seasoned bread crumbs (bought or plain, adding parmesan and italian spices)
1-2 Eggs, beaten, adding a little water.
Oil

Filling can be left over roast, chopped and adding some spaghetti sauce and a little chunk of cheese. Can be garlicky chopped spinach, or mushrooms with a squeeze of lemon and some parsley. Make the filling and set aside.

Fill a small 1 1/2qt sauce pan with frying oil to 1 1/2"-2" deep (sunflower or peanut is great. Not olive)

Heat on med-hi to hi. Salt the oil like you'd salt food.

Break up the rice and add a handful of Parmesan. If not sticky enough to squeeze into balls add a little egg or water.

Have a bowl with breadcrumbs, another bowl with beaten egg with a bit of water, and your filling. Make an assembly line.

Put a golf ball size amt of rice in palm. Make a well and add a small spoon of filling. Put another spoon of rice on top and smush well to close. Roll in egg then in breadcrumbs.

Test the oil by dropping a few breadcrumbs in the oil. They should fry immediately. Watch your temperature, lowering if the arancini brown really quickly and raising if it takes too long to cook.
I fry three at a time in my pan, turning once. Don't overcook but be sure to brown. Drain on a rack over paper towels. Experiment with size and shape. They're very filling so don't make them too big.
My favorite is about 2 1/2" inch size.

Make plenty. Pictured are Arancini with funghi trifolati inside. Chopped mushrooms, sauteed in garlic, butter and olive oil, and at the end add salt, squeeze of lemon, and lots of chopped parsley. SQUISITI, fun, and a great base to play with, adding new ingredients, making tiny ones or sweet ones, even cover an olive with rice and breadcrumbs for neat appetizers...sky's the limit!