Jambalaya Suppli

amazingly good fried treat

DISH 27

You read it right. I figured out a way to combine Cajun and Italian food. I thought I was being really original, but then I realized Two Boots does the same thing. I'm going to mention this one to Doris and see what she thinks.

I had an enormous amount of left over jambalaya from last night which doesn't reheat very well and I can't really freeze it so it is either throw it away (which kills me) or recycle it.

I lived in Rome for a year abroad in college. While there I subsisted mainly on boxed wine and amazingly delicious pizza rustica. These large, rectangular pizzas would come as simply as just olive oil and salt or as exotic as with arugula, shrimp and mayonnaise. The pizza was should by the ounce so when ordering it you'd point to what you want and then make hand motions describing the size piece you'd like. I have only found one place in the US that has anything like it. It's called Amorina Amorina at 624 Vanderbilt Ave. Brooklyn NY. Most of pizza rustica places in Rome would also sell fried and breaded stuffed rice balls called suppli. A bit bigger than a golf ball, smaller than a tennis ball and changed slightly in ingredient depending on the region of Italy you were. In Sicily, they would be stuffed with meat and sometimes had peas in them- a more African influence. In Rome, they would be stuffed with a bit of cheese. They cost 1000 lire or $.70 so they were dirty cheap.

I went searching for a recipe, found that the rice filling was prepared very similarly to risotto or jambalaya. I had a bag of panko left over from an earlier soufflé recipe.

Here is how it went:

Jambalaya Suppli
left over jambalaya, risotto or similar
egg-beaten
oil to fry with (I used canola)
panko (worked great!) or other bread crumbs

roll approx. 3 tbs. balls of jambalaya
dip and coat in egg
roll in panko
fry in HOT oil for 2 minutes per side

Eat while hot.

These were so good that I ate them all. Usually when I cook, I eat just a small amount. This time, I made 5 thinking my daughter would try one, My Husband would have 3 and I would eat one. I couldn't stop myself. After the first one I broke out the Thai chili sauce and ate them with that. They would be great for a party.

[pizza] [fusion] [Rome]