The real Roman Supplì: a delicious street food
Some argue that the Roman supplì was born in the late 1800’s, when Rome was controlled by the French.
In fact the word Supplì would derive from the French “surprise” as a solution to recycle leftovers. A risotto seasoned with sweetbreads and chicken giblets, balled up and fried. It appeared on the menu of a famous trattoria in via dei Condotti in 1874. Just some years later the famous Roman popularizer Ada Boni provides the recipe in her book of the ’29, La cucina Romana.
Supplì al telefono: The recipe
Today the supplì is considered the king of the roman street food. A must try foods of the roman cuisine. You can find those in any pizzeria, forno or pizza al taglio. The perfect snack on the go at any time. There are two main ways to make supplì, depending if you are really using leftovers or not. For leftover recipe you need boled rice or risotto, some sauce, salt & pepper. Mix all these ingredients together forming some oval balls. Then put mozzarella cheese cube in the middle of the ball. Take crumble dried bread and cover the ball. Deep frying in oil. If, instead, you like to make supplì from scratch, here you find the recipe.
Ingredients
- 200 grams of rice (for risotto)
- 150 grams of tomato sauce
- 80 grams of mixed minced meat
- 1/2 glass of wine
- 100 g grated Parmigiano Reggiano cheese
- salt
- black pepper
- 1 mozzarella
- Bread crumbs
- Frying oil
- Vegetable broth / hot water
- 2 eggs
How to make supplì al telefono
To make 12 servings, mix 200 gr (7 onces) of boiled rice with some sauce (meat free to cook it at Jewish style), 3 spoons of grated parmesan cheese. Make a supplì into egg-shaped balls using your hands (in the palm). introduce a little cube of mozzarella cheese in the middle. Now beat a whole egg and dip each supplì into it, then cover it with bread-crumbs.
let it rest for half an hour in the fridge, then deep fry supplì (max 5 per time) into a big amount of hot oil. Remove those from the oil when brown outside and lay those down on a paper towel.
How to make supplì: Secret tips
The secret of the supplì is twofold: on the one hand the breading must not be excessive, on the other the frying, requires boiling oil. Once golden, the supplì are drained from the residual oil with the help of straw paper or with paper towels and serve very hot. If it is not the first, the second bite reveals the surprise: the supplì will spin irresistibly.
Perfect when served with Sangiovese wine.
