food & dining
Risotto Times Two
R isotto is one of those special
occasion dishes that requires a
lot of time standing over a hot
stove stirring. I love it, but I don’t love
making it.

I had a hankering for it the other day
and did some research about how to
avoid the hard labor. I came across
several recipes that swore by the oven
technique, and I gave it a try. It was
shockingly good with minimal effort
and, best of all, I had a lot left over, so
I made risotto balls for dinner a few
nights later.

Those were a bit more effortful, but
since the risotto was no muss, no fuss,
I felt I was still ahead of the game. If
you prefer to avoid wine in cooking or
don’t have it on hand, you can simply
use additional vegetable broth.

This is a basic recipe, but it can be
jazzed up with lemon zest and juice,
fresh herbs, additional spices, tomato
paste, olives, etc.

Oven Risotto | Dairy
Makes about 6 servings, or serves 2
with enough left to make the risotto
balls described below
It is best to use a dish or pan with
a lid to cook this, but in a pinch, you
can cover it with foil. The key is not to
use too large a pan or the liquid won’t
distribute properly; an 8-inch pan is
ideal. For the risotto:
½ onion, chopped
3 cloves garlic, crushed
1½ cups arborio rice
2 tablespoons butter
3 cups vegetable broth
To finish:
⅓ cup grated Parmesan cheese
2 tablespoons butter
Heat your oven to 350 degrees F.

In a 2½-quart casserole dish or
ovenproof pan with a cover, place all
the risotto ingredients and stir. Cover
and bake it for about 45 minutes.

Check for doneness; the rice should
be cooked through but have a slight
bite in the very center. If it is not
done, add a bit more broth or water
and return it to the oven for about 10
minutes. If it is done, but the risotto is
too thick, add a bit more liquid but do
not continue cooking it. Stir well and
add the butter and Parmesan cheese.

Serve immediately.

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766994 ANN’S CHOICE Bucks County
MARIS GROVE Brandywine Valley
20 MAY 4, 2023 | JEWISH EXPONENT
1 cup dry white wine
½ teaspoon salt
½ teaspoon pepper
These delicious orbs are things that
I generally order in restaurants but
never make.

For one thing, it is rare to have
leftover risotto in my house and, until
discovering the oven recipe detailed
above, there was no way I was going to
the trouble to make risotto only to use
it as an ingredient in another dish. But
in this case, it worked out brilliantly.

I used a small skillet to fry these in
batches of 3 or 4 and kept a lid handy
to prevent splatter. This saved using
a huge amount of oil and ensured
that the balls are cooked evenly and
thoroughly. 3
1
¾
½
1
cups leftover risotto, chilled
egg cup Italian-style breadcrumbs
cup panko
cup canola oil for frying
(approximately) Marinara sauce, Parmesan cheese
and chopped fresh herbs, if
desired, for serving.

In a shallow bowl, lightly beat the
egg. In another shallow bowl, mix the
breadcrumbs and panko.

Heat your oven to 250 degrees F,
and place a baking dish nearby to hold
the cooked risotto balls.

Heat the oil in a skillet over medium-
high heat.

Using a tablespoon and wet hands,
scoop enough risotto to form a
golf-ball-sized sphere; pack it firmly.

Roll the ball in the egg, then the bread-
crumb mixture and place it in the hot
oil. (The oil is ready when a piece
of breadcrumb dropped in sizzles.)
Repeat this process, frying balls 3 or
4 at a time, turning them carefully with
tongs as they brown and turn crispy.

When the balls are done on all sides,
remove them from the pan and place
them in the baking dish. Place the
baking dish in the oven to keep the
balls warm and serve as desired with
the marinara sauce, Parmesan cheese
and/or chopped fresh parsley/basil. ■
Keri White is a Philadelphia-based
freelance food writer.

Photos by Keri White
Keri White



arts & culture
Holocaust Remembrance Foundation,
Mural Arts Announce Plaza Mural
Sasha Rogelberg | Staff Writer
Photo by Sasha Rogelberg
M ural Arts Philadelphia founder
and Executive Director Jane
Golden considers herself a “wall hunter,”
roaming the streets of Philadelphia for
blank concrete canvases.

For years, she’s visited the wall framing
the Horwitz-Wasserman Holocaust
Memorial Plaza on the Benjamin
Franklin Parkway, refl ecting on the site
and hoping to one day transform the
2,000-square-foot panel behind it into a
piece of public art.

“I would often pass by here, I would sit
down, I would refl ect on the space and
all that it means: the context of 6 million
Jews lost, the weight of their absence
on generations of survivors and what
the Holocaust means to us today as a
multiracial, multicultural Philadelphia and
Americans,” Golden, who is Jewish, said.

Soon, Golden’s hope will come to
fruition. The
Philadelphia Holocaust
Remembrance Foundation, in partner-
ship with public arts nonprofi t Mural Arts,
announced on May 2 plans to bring
a mural to the Horwitz-Wasserman
Holocaust Memorial Plaza in 2024. The
mural will be the fi rst on the parkway
and the first large-scale, publicly
commissioned Holocaust mural in the
United States, according to Philadelphia
Holocaust Remembrance Foundation
Executive Director Eszter Kutas.

“At a pivotal time when the community
of Holocaust survivors can no longer lead
the work of educating future generations
… How do we reach young people who
do not have a connection to this piece
of history? How do we make sure that
the lessons of the Holocaust stay in our
public conscience?” Kutas said. “These
are the questions that we grapple with as
we program and advance this Holocaust
memorial. So, in a way, adding a mural to
the memorial to serve as a backdrop to
this historical place seems like a natural
evolution.” Over the next 18 months, the organi-
zations will facilitate a multistep artist
Mural Arts Philadelphia Executive Director Jane Golden speaks at a May 2
press conference announcing a mural for the Horwitz-Wasserman Holocaust
Memorial Plaza.

selection process with community input
and unveil the mural outside of the plaza
next fall. The partnering organizations
are looking for artists who have experi-
ence with large-scale projects such as
murals, with personal, communal or
cultural connections to the Holocaust.

The idea for the mural came from
Philadelphia Holocaust Remembrance
Foundation board Co-chair Jacob Reiter.

“Art can be therapeutic and instructive
to artists and viewers, and public art is
one of the most powerful tools society
has to educate and inspire communities
while beautifying public spaces,” he said.

Golden called the mural a challenging
project that has to tackle a sensitive topic
while also complementing the plaza’s
other symbolic sites.

At the May 2 press conference, the
Holocaust foundation and Mural Arts
invited students from Friends Select School
to decorate rocks with symbols of hope to
adorn the base of the “Monument to Six
Million Jewish Martyrs” sculpture by artist
and Holocaust survivor Nathan Rapoport.

The plaza is home to a sapling from a
cutting of a tree found in the Theresienstadt
concentration camp, a set of original train
tracks from the Treblinka extermination
camp and six pillars with inscriptions of
American ideals to frame the experience
of visiting the plaza. The University of
Southern California’s Shoah Foundation
developed an “iWalk” app to accompany
the plaza’s components, which were added
to the site in a 2018 update.

A mural is a natural next step for the
Holocaust foundation, as it will increase
visibility and draw in new visitors. Murals
as a form of public art have power-
ful roots in Philadelphia, Golden said,
making the medium fi tting for the space
between the Parkway and Arch St.

Golden founded Mural Arts in
1998 before spending 10 years at the
Philadelphia Anti-Graffi ti Network, which
was founded in 1984, when the city
encouraged the creation of murals as an
alternative to graffi ti.

“In the early years, murals were seen
as a sign that people cared and that
things could change," Golden said. “And
they became beacons and focal points
around which people felt like they could
create other changes.”
Mural Arts previously worked with the
Anti-Defamation League Philadelphia
and the Jewish Federation of Greater
Philadelphia on public art campaigns.

“It’s about beautifi cation and lifting
our spirits and challenging us to think
diff erently,” she said. “It does all those
things.” ■
srogelberg@midatlanticmedia.com JEWISHEXPONENT.COM
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