Daring Cooks March Challenge: Risotto

Whoops- I thought I posted this last month (this was March’s challenge).

March's Daring Cooks Challenge: Risotto

Blog-checking lines: The 2010 March Daring Cooks challenge was hosted by Eleanor of MelbournefoodGeek and Jess of Jessthebaker. They chose to challenge Daring Cooks to make risotto. The various components of their challenge recipe are based on input from the Australian Masterchef cookbook and the cookbook Moorish by Greg Malouf.

I have made risotto several times so I was actually disappointed to see this as the challenge.  I look forward to the Daring Cooks challenges because they typically require me to make something I have never made before.

Here is the recipe:

 
Risotto Base

Ingredients:
olive oil 2 fluid oz 60 ml
1 small onion, quatered
rice 14 oz 400g
Any type of risotto rice will do. I use Arborio but the recipe itself says Vialone Nano. Another to look for is Carnaroli.
white wine 2 fl oz 60 ml
chicken or vegetable stock , simmering 2 pints 1 L

Directions:

1. Heat oil in a pan and add onion. Fry for a few minutes to flavour the oil then discard. (We diced ours and left it in as we like onion).
2. Add the rice and stir for a few minutes to coat each grain of rice with oil and toast slightly.
3. Add the wine and let it bubble away until evaporated.
4. Add enough stock to cover the rice by a finger’s width (about an inch or two). Don't actually stick your finger in, it will be hot. Just eye it off.
5. Cook on medium heat, stirring with a wooden spoon from time to time, until most of the stock has been absorbed.
6. Repeat Step 5 making sure to leave aside approximately 100 ml. of stock for the final step. .
7. Repeat, save 100ml for the final stage.
8. Once you are at this point, the base is made. You now get to add your own variation.

I decided to add sliced mushrooms and roasted asparagus. 

-To cook the mushrooms you heat a pan (preferably cast iron) over medium-high heat and once the pan is hot, add a combination of butter and oil (the butter is important, it adds a really good flavor).  When the butter/oil stops foaming, add the mushrooms.  Don’t overcrowd the pan and also don’t move them around in the beginning.  Wait until they have a nice brown color on them, then move them around/flip them over.  Most importantly- take them out before they begin to release liquid.  If you wait until they release liquid you won’t be able to taste the browning and sometimes they get mushy.

-To cook the asparagus, I just cleaned it and cut it up into 1 inch pieces.  I then tossed the pieces in olive oil and placed them on a cookie sheet (and sprinkled them with salt and pepper).  I roasted them at 425 degrees for 15 minutes.

Substitutions: I used homemade stock from the freezer that I made last time I made a chicken in the crockpot.  I also used rice from the sushi challenge (the bag says it can be used to make risotto- it’s quite the same but it was a decent substitution).  I also didn’t use wine since I didn’t have any, I just used extra chicken stock.

To begin, I sautéed the diced onion (and I left it in the risotto).  I then added the rice and toasted it for a few minutes.

Next, I added about ½ cup chicken stock to begin the process.  Once that mostly evaporated, I added two scoopfuls (about 3/4- 1.25 cups) chicken stock as necessary until it was mostly done (meaning mostly starchy and the rice was almost cooked).

While the risotto was coming together I sautéed/roasted some vegetables in a separate pan to add to the risotto towards at the end (see above for how to prepare the vegetables). 

Once the risotto was mostly done, I added in the sautéed vegetables to let the flavors come together and to cook the vegetables a little more.

Once the risotto was done cooking, I finished it off by adding in a tablespoon of butter and a ¼ cup of shredded parmesan cheese.  I also added pepper.

To serve, I scooped some risotto on a plate and parmesan on top!