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I want to make simple aricini (eggs + cheese + rice) but with brown rice and chopped spinach. When I made this I ended up having too much water in the mixture. As brown rice takes lots of water to cook and spinach secretes water when chopped fine.

How do I go about this?

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  • Are you using raw spinach or cooked?
    – Catija
    Sep 28, 2016 at 16:25
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    are you mixing the spinach in with the rice, or trying to have it be a surprise in the middle? Also see cooking.stackexchange.com/q/6471/67
    – Joe
    Sep 28, 2016 at 21:59

2 Answers 2

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Keep good notes?

Seriously, just use less water, until you have the correct proportions figured out. Trial and error is a long process, but I don't see any shortcuts in you case if you can't find a recipe already using brown rice and spinach. The extra water used in making brown rice should really be absorbed by the rice, the preparation shouldn't have too much extra water left in it unless there was a mis-measurement. The water added by the spinach has to be accounted for, but without knowing amount or preparation of spinach, or anything else there's no way to guess how much water would be added (and therefore how much needs to be removed to balance it out).

The recipes I found for Arancini (I I think this is the same thing, please mention if if you meant something else) - have the rice and other ingredients cooked risotto style first, rather than in a rice cooker or by some hands-off method that requires pre-measured water. In short, it means you don't have to get the amount of rice exactly right immediately, you can use much less water at first, and slowly add more if it's getting too dry, or even cook a bit longer to reduce if it's getting too wet. Longer cooking may change the texture a bit, if you aren't careful, but if you are gentle with the heat it may come out alright - especially since the recipe is going to be cooked again anyway to make the balls with.

If you are intending to have the spinach stuffed into the balls, instead of mixed into the risotto - then Joe's link will be useful, as you need to get as much water as you can out of the spinach beforehand (possibly you can still add it to the risotto), and there are limits in how dry you can make the risotto to balance the extra moisture. If you cannot balance the moisture even after pushing the spinach and the risotto to their limits, you may just have to use a different preparation of spinach, or lesser quantities.

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    +1 for your reference to risotto and the idea to cook the brown rice in a risotto style.
    – Cindy
    Sep 29, 2016 at 11:07
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    an excellent point on the risotto -- I've always made it w/ risotto (often leftovers, chilled to cook the next day) ... have never tried doing it any other way.
    – Joe
    Oct 10, 2016 at 14:39
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After cooking your rice separately, drain it in a colander, if needed, before spreading it on a parchment-lined sheet to cool completely.

An effective way to limit the amount of liquid produced by spinach is to dry- sauté it in a frying pan. Chop it first, put it in a medium-hot skillet, and stir constantly; it will take only a few minutes to cook through. Remove to a colander and gently press to remove any excess liquid.

Then, add your rice and spinach to the rest of the ingredients (beaten eggs, cheese, and bread crumb) before shaping into balls and rolling in additional bread crumbs.

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  • thank you, I drained the rice with a seive (pressing on top with a potato masher) and the arancini turned out much better than my previous attempt.
    – Sindhu S
    Oct 8, 2016 at 5:14

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