Cooking with Father

I had some mozzarella to use up so I set about cooking some rice balls with melted cheese (‘aranchi’) for Ed from a recipe off Annabel Karmel’s ‘Cook it Together’ book. Also contained in the balls are risotto rice, parmesan, breadcrumbs, onion and beaten eggs. Initially I made the mixture and left it to set in the fridge for several hours.

While these were setting we went to the park. Ed walked up to two ladies on a bench wearing a beaming smile. He returned to them with increasing jollity. One of the ladies said to him ‘Your T Shirt is right’. His T Shirt said ‘Cheeky’ and had an accompanying picture of a monkey.

From the moment I took the mixture out of the fridge, the whole process of making rice balls proved to be fiddly. I encouraged Ed to roll the four mozzarella filled balls in breadcrumbs and parmesan and then round the beaten egg mixture. He had helped me whisk the egg, a process in which its fluid flew around the place. At this point I made a mental note to get an apron for Ed – and myself (perhaps, in the spirit of re-using, there will be a comedy apron left over from next week’s scheduled stag do).

Holding Ed so he could watch, I set about frying the balls. They broke up and left a layer in the pan. Although broken up, the flattened version seemed to help melt the mozzarella better than if it was fried while in a ball. After they were fully fried I took the mixture out and re-arranged it back to the right shapes.

I realised that there was also an accompanying tomato sauce that could be made. Lacking the ingredients, I went in the cupboard and found a nachos topping sauce to use.

Come teatime, Ed didn’t like the cheese balls. One came out of his mouth as quickly as it went it. He did, however, like the nacho sauce. I mixed up some potato and chicken for him to have with the sauce and he ate most of it.

At least the cheese balls found favour with us. We talked about making them at buffets. But the ingredients don’t come cheap for these four items - £1.20 for mozzarella with the parmesan, risotto rice and egg raking up the price. Not a cheap nibble.

Things didn’t end here. At 4: 15am, Ed stirred and didn’t get back to sleep. He filled one nappy, and then another one. He had an upset stomach - it seems the chilli contained in the nacho sauce proved too much for the poor boy.