Bottega - Michael Chiarello [17]
4 ounces fresh mozzarella, preferably bocconcini
2 cups all-purpose flour
3 large eggs, lightly beaten
2 cups panko (Japanese bread crumbs)
Peanut oil, corn oil, or canola oil for frying
Line a platter with parchment paper. In a large bowl, stir the risotto and pesto together until blended. Divide the rice into 16 more-or-less-equal portions.
Cut off about ½ teaspoon of mozzarella and then, with your hands, ball up one serving of rice around the cheese so it’s completely encased in rice. Gently place on the prepared platter. Repeat to form 16 arancini. Slide the platter into the freezer for 30 minutes to allow the balls to firm up.
Before you take the rice balls from the freezer, set up your dredging station. Pour the flour into a shallow bowl; the eggs into another shallow bowl; and the panko into a third shallow bowl.
In a large, heavy pot or Dutch oven, heat 3 inches of oil over medium-high heat until it registers 375°F on a deep-fat thermometer. While the oil heats, dredge each rice ball in flour and lightly shake off the excess. Dip each rice ball in the egg and then in the panko. Gently drop 4 to 6 balls into the oil and cook until lightly browned, 60 to 90 seconds. Don’t overcook them or the cheese will leak out into your oil. Using a slotted spoon or wire skimmer, transfer the arancini to paper towels to drain. Repeat to cook the remaining arancini. Serve at once.
CHEF’S NOTE: If you like, you can fry the day before, refrigerate overnight, and reheat with great success. To reheat, bake at 375°F for 10 to 15 minutes.
Location, Location, Location
My first thought in looking for a location for Bottega was, “Where could I possibly go after the villa-like setting of Tra Vigne?” I couldn’t imagine a restaurant without that same kind of heritage. When I came to view this old building in Yountville, memories rushed over me. This portion of the building was once the Chutney Kitchen, started by French Laundry founders Don and Sally Schmitt in the 1970s. When I first came to the Napa Valley in the 1980s, I was introduced to it by Belle and Barney Rhodes, whom I still consider the royalty of Napa even though they’ve both left us in the past few years.
As you settle into your seat at Bottega, exhale your day, and begin to experience our hospitality, you can’t help but be drawn in by the history of our building. The old brick walls and the deep crack in one of the beams overhead tell a story; it’s like the European experience of knowing a place has had many lives before you ever arrived there. After we added some reinforcement, I left the cracked beam and brick walls exposed, in the hope that the stories we tell at Bottega will join the stories already here and the stories yet to come.
Bruschetta Trio: Tomatoes and Basil; Pepperonata; and Carrot, Onion, and Eggplant Caponata
SERVES 6
This is my answer to the luncheon sandwich—all the flavor on three half-slices of bread. Make the bruschetta slices small, from baguettes, and this becomes an hors d’oeuvre.
Bruschetta tells you something about the cook. Oven-dried slabs of bread don’t count as bruschetta in my book. Aim for a crisp brown exterior, but make sure your bruschetta still has some tenderness inside.
I prefer to grill my bread slices over a flame and season them with sea salt and pepper and a good brush of olive oil after they’ve got the good grill marks. If you don’t want to fire up your grill, you can use a grill pan to toast your bread slices or just put them on the rack in your oven preheated to 375°F and take them out when they’re browned to suit your tastes.
For this presentation, I make bruschetta from large slices of bread cut in half, but baguette-size slices work, too.
If you have good tomatoes but don’t feel like sautéing the garlic, skip it: chopped heirloom tomatoes and finely shredded basil, salt and pepper, EVOO (extra-virgin olive oil), and you’re good to go. If you don’t have fine summer tomatoes, don’t bother with the tomato part of this trio; you have a wide world of options for topping