Frittelle di riso - rice fritters

Growing up in Tuscany, with a non-Tuscan mother, meant a very simple thing at Carnival: double sweets. My mum would prepare both the sweets from her own region (Marches, on the Adriatic See), called chiacchiere (chats) and the traditional Tuscan ones, called frittelle di riso, rice fritters. 

The Marches chiacchiere - which are not to be confused with all other sweets under the same name that you can find pretty much everywhere else in Italy - are fried rolls of dough with a lot of caramel. They are delicious, but they are a lot of work. Frittelle di riso are fried pancakes made of rice which is cooked in milk with lemon zest and sugar. They are quick and relatively easy to make, but they do not keep well. Which means that you should plan on preparing them when you have guests, so that you can share them and eat them when they are warm or at least fresh. They will still be edible the day after (and actually a lot of people even prefer them one or two days after), but they will not be as fluffy and as sugary, because the coating of sugar will dissolve.

The nice thing about these fritters is that despite being fried and full of sugar, they are relatively low in Weight Watchers points, provided you don't eat 20 of them (as I used to do): 3 fritters is only 5 points...the same as for a slice of castagnaccio, or a cupcake.

Frittelle di riso (makes about 40 fritters)
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• 1 and 1/4 cup of short grain rice (I use arborio, but carnaroli is also fine. The important thing is that you use a SHORT grain rice, the one you would use for a risotto. The longer version will NOT work). 
• 3 cups of milk
• 2 tbsp of sugar 
• Peel of 1/2 a lemon
• 1 finger of brandy (or similar spirits: amaretto will also work)
• 1/2 cup of flour
• 3 eggs, the yolk separated from the white
• salt
• 1/2 cup of oil (or more, if needed) to fry 
• granulated sugar to coat the fritters

How to make them

• Pour the milk into a pan, and add the sugar and the lemon peel. Add the rice, and bring to a boil, very slowly, with a very low fire. It will take some time. Stir from time to time, to avoid the rice to stick to the pan and burn. Take off the fire when the rice will have absorbed the milk completely (see photos below). The whole thing will take 20-25 minutes. 
• Place the rice (which will be very sticky) in a large bowl, and add the egg yolks (ONLY the yolks), the flour, the brandy and a pinch of salt. Mix well and let it cool for a couple of hours, or until it is cold to the touch. DO NOT put into the refiregerator, or else the mixture will become too hard to work with. 
• When the rice is cold, beat the egg whites until they are firm. Add them to the mixture, incorporating them well.
• If you have a deep fryer, turn it on and bring it to a hot temperature. If not, heat enough oil in a shallow pan so as to be able to deep fry the frittelle. 
• When it is hot enough, drop the fritters into the hot oil, one teaspoon at a time. Let them fry for 30 seconds/1 minute, or enough time for them to become golden. The fritters will grow in size and become as large as a golf ball. 
• Drain them and place them onto a paper towel. Pass them then into a bowl full of granulated sugar. 
• Serve them hot, or lukewarm, or even cold. As mentioned, they do not keep well, so you should plan on eating them within a day or so. 

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