By the blessed balls of St Lawrence...
Dec. 1st, 2013 07:17 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
highlyeccentricI left my room with the intention of making a fairly pedestrian risotto. Instead I ended up making multi-step, four-dish, date night for one roast vegetable and sautéed mushroom risotto, and damn pleased I am about it too.
This recipe is safe for: coeliacs (assuming you check your balsamic), vegetarians, even vegans
This recipe is not safe for: people with cholesterol worries, people who don't like faffing around for ages, people who are going to calculate how many calories went into sauteeing the musrooms or onions. In those cases, I recommend the combination of vegetables (pumpkin, zucchini, mushroom) and suggest you adapt this recipe, steaming the pumpkin separately because it takes longer.
This recipe really won't suit: people with motor or mental health problems which prevent hovering over stoves and alternating pots
Risotto base:
1 onion, finely diced
2/3 cup arborio rice
About 3 tbsp cooking oil (better if it's olive, cheaper if it's canola, probably killing orangutangs if it's "vegetable oil"
Some thyme, maybe some garlic
About 1 litre of vegetable stock, maybe more
White wine (optional)
Vegetables:
Pumpkin. Some pumpkin. I don't know how much, but let's say, it was a cross-section of gourd a bit more than an inch wide, and I used half the cross-section. Chop into pieces about 1 inch cubed
1 or 2 zucchini, chopped into pieces no bigger than the pumkin chunks
Mushrooms. Lots of mushrooms. Bonus points if you have a seasonal melangé of wild mushrooms, but I had about 300 grams of chamignons de paris, sliced in half.
For cooking vegetables:
Generous amounts of apple-balsamic vinegar
Rosemary & pepper, ground
A couple of tablespoons of either oil or stock
Generous amounts of either oil or butter
2 cloves of garlic, diced (this will not work as well with ground)
Serve: with parmesan cheese or similar
WHAT YOU DO
1. Begin by sauteeing your onions in a generous dose of oil. They should smell sweet and delicious.
2. While you do this, chop up pumpkin and zucchini and place in a baking tray. Mix together a generous amount of vinegar (about 1/3 of a cup?) and either a dash of oil or a slurp of stock, and then add some rosemary and pepper. Pour over vegetables and toss to coat. Roast on 200 degrees for... oh, about an hour (give or take. I turned up my oven to 210 for quicker results)
3. Does your onion smell delicious? Good. Add a dash of thyme and some garlic (I used ground, because lazy). Now add the arborio rice and stir until coated.
4. Add 1/2 to 1 cup of white wine, which should go SIZZLE in the pan. Turn down heat and simmer until absorbed. While this is happening, put your stock in a pan on vr low heat to keep warm.
5. Commence ladling small amounts of stock into your risotto, stirring, waiting, stirring, and adding more stock when the first amount has been absorbed. This is tedious, but if you have a good non-stick pan you can wander away for three to five min at a time. Keep heat low, or your rice will be ready before the pumpkin is.
6. Every so often (every fifteen min, say?) stir up the pumpkin tray and check how cooked it is. When it's about 10 min away from cooked - so, your fork goes in easily but with a slight crunch - get out a frying pan and heat a *generous* amount of either cooking oil or butter. Say, 1/3 of a cup to start with?
7. Fry your mushrooms and diced garlic, adding more oil or butter if it absorbs too quickly. As they brown on all sides and begin to shrink, add a couple of tablespoons of apple balsamic. Simmer until the smell starts to turn bitter, then remove from heat and drain excess oil.
8. MEANWHILE check your risotto rice. When it is cooked through and fluffy, turn the pan off and keep warm. Ideally this should happen just as the mushrroms are ready, but let's not get too hopeful.
9. Stir mushrooms through risotto.
10. Ideally, the pumpkin is now ready for noms! Remove from oven and spoon vegetables into the risotto pot.
11. Now, serve your risotto with generous helpings of parmesan.
This recipe is safe for: coeliacs (assuming you check your balsamic), vegetarians, even vegans
This recipe is not safe for: people with cholesterol worries, people who don't like faffing around for ages, people who are going to calculate how many calories went into sauteeing the musrooms or onions. In those cases, I recommend the combination of vegetables (pumpkin, zucchini, mushroom) and suggest you adapt this recipe, steaming the pumpkin separately because it takes longer.
This recipe really won't suit: people with motor or mental health problems which prevent hovering over stoves and alternating pots
Risotto base:
1 onion, finely diced
2/3 cup arborio rice
About 3 tbsp cooking oil (better if it's olive, cheaper if it's canola, probably killing orangutangs if it's "vegetable oil"
Some thyme, maybe some garlic
About 1 litre of vegetable stock, maybe more
White wine (optional)
Vegetables:
Pumpkin. Some pumpkin. I don't know how much, but let's say, it was a cross-section of gourd a bit more than an inch wide, and I used half the cross-section. Chop into pieces about 1 inch cubed
1 or 2 zucchini, chopped into pieces no bigger than the pumkin chunks
Mushrooms. Lots of mushrooms. Bonus points if you have a seasonal melangé of wild mushrooms, but I had about 300 grams of chamignons de paris, sliced in half.
For cooking vegetables:
Generous amounts of apple-balsamic vinegar
Rosemary & pepper, ground
A couple of tablespoons of either oil or stock
Generous amounts of either oil or butter
2 cloves of garlic, diced (this will not work as well with ground)
Serve: with parmesan cheese or similar
WHAT YOU DO
1. Begin by sauteeing your onions in a generous dose of oil. They should smell sweet and delicious.
2. While you do this, chop up pumpkin and zucchini and place in a baking tray. Mix together a generous amount of vinegar (about 1/3 of a cup?) and either a dash of oil or a slurp of stock, and then add some rosemary and pepper. Pour over vegetables and toss to coat. Roast on 200 degrees for... oh, about an hour (give or take. I turned up my oven to 210 for quicker results)
3. Does your onion smell delicious? Good. Add a dash of thyme and some garlic (I used ground, because lazy). Now add the arborio rice and stir until coated.
4. Add 1/2 to 1 cup of white wine, which should go SIZZLE in the pan. Turn down heat and simmer until absorbed. While this is happening, put your stock in a pan on vr low heat to keep warm.
5. Commence ladling small amounts of stock into your risotto, stirring, waiting, stirring, and adding more stock when the first amount has been absorbed. This is tedious, but if you have a good non-stick pan you can wander away for three to five min at a time. Keep heat low, or your rice will be ready before the pumpkin is.
6. Every so often (every fifteen min, say?) stir up the pumpkin tray and check how cooked it is. When it's about 10 min away from cooked - so, your fork goes in easily but with a slight crunch - get out a frying pan and heat a *generous* amount of either cooking oil or butter. Say, 1/3 of a cup to start with?
7. Fry your mushrooms and diced garlic, adding more oil or butter if it absorbs too quickly. As they brown on all sides and begin to shrink, add a couple of tablespoons of apple balsamic. Simmer until the smell starts to turn bitter, then remove from heat and drain excess oil.
8. MEANWHILE check your risotto rice. When it is cooked through and fluffy, turn the pan off and keep warm. Ideally this should happen just as the mushrroms are ready, but let's not get too hopeful.
9. Stir mushrooms through risotto.
10. Ideally, the pumpkin is now ready for noms! Remove from oven and spoon vegetables into the risotto pot.
11. Now, serve your risotto with generous helpings of parmesan.