Aug 19

From the memory bank – Risotto

Risotto is the go to, can’t be bothered thinking about what to make for dinner recipe for me.  It’s great for using up vegetables, and since I tend to use vegetable based stocks (generally Massell), it’s vegetarian until I add meat (which I cook separately), so I can easily cook this for my vegetarian friends and family.  My recipe for risotto is probably a long way away from “traditional”, but it’s tasty and easy.

Risotto is a dish that cooks rice by absorption of liquid.  Generally this will probably take about 40 minutes to an hour to prepare depending on how it takes to prepare the vegetables and meat (if using).

Feeds 4 people

Ingredients:

  • 1.25 litres of stock (beef, vegetable or chicken depending on the meat you are using)
  • ¼ cup of wine
  • 1 tablespoon of olive oil
  • 25 grams of butter
  • 300 grams of meat sliced as appropriate (I usually use chicken, a cured sausage or fish)
  • 5 – 6 cups of vegetables (I use combinations of carrots, celery, tinned corn, tinned mushrooms, sundried tomato, leek, onion, shallots, spinach, pumpkin, fresh beans, fresh peas, snow peas, roasted capsicum, chilli, artichoke hearts, roasted eggplant, etc)
  • 1 ½ cups of Arborio (or medium grain) rice
  • ½ cup of freshly grated Parmesan cheese (or less if preferred)
  • Oil (if required) for cooking the meat in

Method:

  1. Heat the stock and wine in a saucepan, cover and keep at a slow simmer.
  2. Heat the oil and butter in a large saucepan.  Add the vegetables to the pan and cook until onion/leek/shallot is soft, or for 5 minutes depending on the vegetables used.
  3. Add the rice to the vegetable mixture and stir until well rice is coated.
  4. Add 4 – 5 soup ladles of the wine/stock mixture.  Stir until the liquid is completely absorbed.
  5. Continue adding more liquid, 1 to 2 ladles at a time, stirring the mixture constantly for 20 minutes (you may have some liquid left over at the end).
  6. Cook the meat separately while watching the rice to ensure that it does not dry out and start to stick to the pan (this is where I utilise a helper)
  7. Add the meat (if using) and parmesan cheese to the mixture and stir through.  Cover and let stand for two minutes before serving.