I've always been a little apprehensive about making risotto from scratch. I love the show Top Chef and it seems like risotto is the kiss of death that ends up getting the person who made it sent home, time after time. That left the impression on me that it's very temperamental and difficult to get right. My apprehension was recently relieved though, thanks to my neighbor, Chef Scott. He decided to show his wife (and my friend), Lauren, and me the proper way to make risotto (mushroom risotto, to be exact) from scratch one night back in November, and it turned out to be pretty much the best food I have ever tasted.
His method was very thorough (of course it was! He's a chef!) and involved creating his own mushroom broth from scratch using a raft. While I believe that homemade broth really made the dish, I'm not quite that adventurous on my own so I'm going to skip that step here and use store-bought broth. I decided on the chicken variety, but if you want to keep this completely vegetarian, feel free to use vegetable broth, or mushroom broth if you happen to find it in the store.
This recipe was inspired by a dish I love to get at a local Irish pub that I frequent. All of their food is great, but the dish they serve there that this recipe is based on is pretty much the only entree that is completely vegetarian, so at one point it was my default whenever I went there to eat dinner along with my pint. (My default has changed periodically throughout the year the pub has been open, from a wedge salad, to fish and chips, to a blue cheese and leek tart, but that is a whole different story!) I've always wanted to try my own version at home and since I now have top notch risotto preparation knowledge under my belt, I decided to give it a go. The results were pretty fantastic, if I do say so myself...
Let's get cookin'!
Servings: 2 (there will be some left over risotto, but there is a recipe for that at the bottom of this recipe, so don't fret!)
Prep time: 15 minutes
Cooking time: about 45 minutes
Ingredients:
2 red bell peppers, tops cut off and seeds removed from inside
2 1/2 tablespoons extra virgin olive oil
2 tablespoons butter
1/2 cup chopped yellow onion
1/2 large shallot, minced
1 large garlic clove, peeled but left whole
1 cup uncooked arborio rice
3 cups chicken broth
1 sprig fresh thyme
2 handfuls of grated parmesan cheese
1 teaspoon fresh parsley, chopped
Paprika to taste
Salt & pepper to taste
Preheat your oven to 350 degrees Fahrenheit.
Place a medium sized pot on the stove over medium-low heat. Add two tablespoons olive oil along with the butter.
Once the butter has melted into the oil, add the chopped onion and minced shallot. Immediately grate the clove of garlic over the pot, remembering to scrape off the back of your grater to get all of the pulp to add as well. Let this cook until it's all translucent, about five minutes.
At this stage, place your peppers in an oven-safe dish, drizzle them with 1/2 tablespoon of olive oil, and sprinkle with a pinch each of salt & pepper. Put them in the oven to cook while you finish making the rice.
Back to the risotto. Add all of the rice to the pot with the sauteed onion, shallot, and garlic. Stir the rice for about three minutes to coat in the olive oil/butter and lightly toasting it.
Now let's begin adding the broth. To start, add one cup and stir until it has soaked up into the rice. At this time (pun intended!) add the sprig of thyme, on the stem.
Once the broth has been absorbed, add the second cup of broth while slowly stirring. Once the second cup has been absorbed, pour in the third cup. Stir to make sure all of the liquid has been absorbed.
Remove the pot from the heat and pluck out all of the thyme stems. Next, stir in one handful of the grated parmesan cheese.
Take your peppers out of the oven and set them on a trivet near the pot of risotto. Turn the oven off of 'bake' and set it to 'broil.' Carefully spoon the risotto into your peppers, filling them to the rim. Sprinkle the tops with the remaining handful of parmesan (so about half a handful for each) and place them back in the oven to broil until the cheese has melted and turned golden brown. Remove promptly.
Place a pepper on each person's plate and sprinkle the tops and plates with the chopped parsley, paprika, and pepper to taste. Set the lids back on top for a pretty serving presentation. I served mine with a side of steamed broccoli, as you can see in the picture.
To eat, simply remove the top and slice into the pepper and risotto with a knife, and cut into bite size pieces, making sure you get a slice of pepper with every bite of risotto. We also cut the edible pieces from the top, so those are fair game as well. Salute!
Crispy Mushroom Topped Risotto
As I mentioned above, Chef Scott made mushroom risotto when he was teaching us how to cook risotto from scratch. I took that idea to use when figuring out something different to do with the leftovers I had from my risotto stuffed peppers. When I came up with this, I had recently been to Ray's the Steaks, an awesome local steakhouse in Arlington, VA, and gotten a doggie bag of sauteed mushrooms I had ordered at dinner. The taste of them as leftovers wasn't that great, so I decided to spruce them up with a few ingredients I had around the kitchen so that I could eat them with my risotto. I doubt you have sauteed mushrooms laying around your house, so I adjusted the recipe to be able to accomodate fresh mushrooms.
Let's get cookin' (again!)
Servings: 1
Prep time: 5 minutes
Cooking time: 10 minutes
Ingredients:
Handful of mushrooms - any variety of your choosing
1 teaspoon extra virgin olive oil
1 teaspoon butter
a dash of red wine - whatever you have open
Leftover risotto
Pinch of chopped fresh parsley
Place the leftover risotto in a microwave-safe bowl and cover with a damp paper towel. Heat in the microwave for two minutes, pausing at the one minute mark to stir. When it's done reheating, leave it sitting in the microwave until you're done cooking the mushrooms.
Melt the butter into the olive oil in a non-stick skillet over medium-high heat. As soon as the butter is melted, add the mushrooms and saute for about two minutes. Next add the red wine along with some pepper to taste. Keep moving the mushrooms around with a spatula to prevent them from burning, but the goal is to get them nice and crispy. Once they've reached that crispy texture, sprinkle in a pinch of salt and push them around the pan one more time before taking them off the heat.
Get the heated up risotto from the microwave and spoon it onto a serving plate. Distribute the mushrooms along the top of the risotto and sprinkle with a bit of chopped parsley. Now those are some bangin' leftovers you can look forward to coming home to all day!
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