Risotto

It never ceases to amaze me how many opinions there are on making risotto, many of which are rice dishes but bear little resemblance to this dish in which starch masquerades very successfully as fat to give an unctuous mouth feel.

Here is a guide to risotto that can be adapted to any ingredients. And yes I do stir continually and add the liquid gradually rather than all at once.

The stock

First start off with a good quality stock. I mainly use chicken as it is quite neutral in taste and seems to complement most of the ingredients.

The rice

Next, choose the rice. Three main types of rice are used in making risotto. These are all short-grained rice derived from the Japonica variety that are grown in Italy. The main rices used in risotto are:

1.         Arborio,

2.         Carnaroli, and

3.         Vialone Nano.

While they all make excellent risottos, they tend to absorb different amounts of stock, all come up with a different texture in terms of: 1. creaminess from absorbing the stock, and 2. the al dente nature of the finished product.

In my experience, Arborio makes a mouth filling, al dente risotto. Carnaroli gives similar results but is a bit less fussy in cooking than Arborio in that it is less likely to absorb too much liquid and become gluggy. Vialone Nano seems to absorb more liquid than the others while maintaining its structure and results in a soft textured risotto, which ripples when you tip the bowl. Giorgio Locatelli refers to this as “all’ondo” or “of waves.”

I have it on good authority from a correspondent in Italy that Arborio and Carnaroli are generally used when preparing meat risottos or plain Milanese and Piedmontese white risotto with truffles. Vialone Nano is preferred for vegetable and seafood risottos.

Quantities

Typically for a first course of risotto for four people, you will need around 300g of rice.

The amount of liquid will vary dependent on the rice that you use, heat, and various other factors.  Typically for 300g of rice, you will need around 1.25l of stock. That having been said, you really need to taste and know when to stop cooking rather than just use the amount of liquid recommended in a cookbook. I tend to stop just before it is done when it is still a little more al dente than I like. This is done because the rice is rested before serving and it continues to cook while this is being done.

Adding Other Ingredients

The time at which you add other ingredients depends very much on how long they take to cook to get to their perfect eating texture. For example, if you are using dark chicken meat from the thigh, you will add the meat at the start of cooking. If you are using breast meat, which has a tendency to dry out with extended cooking, you will add it probably more towards the middle of the cooking process. Prawns should be added towards the end of cooking so they just heat through.

For vegetables, think of it in terms of when you add them when making a stew: root vegetables which require more cooking are added early while vegetables that require less cooking are added later or when finishing.

If the ingredients contain liquid, for example mushrooms, you will need less stock.

Basic ingredients

Apart from rice and stock, the basic ingredients for a risotto include onion, oil, white wine, grated parmesan cheese, and butter.

To make enough for four people, use ½ large onion, finely diced; 200ml white wine; 125g grated parmesan cheese; and 2 tbsp butter.

You will need a saucepan large enough to take the completed risotto as well as another to hold all the stock.

Basic summary of method

Heat the stock until it is hot but below a slow simmer.

• Heat oil in pan
• Sweat onion until translucent
• Add rice to oil, stir until well covered do not brown
• Add wine, cook until it evaporates
• Add hot stock one ladle at a time (it needs to be a high enough heat to cook quite vigorously). Stir until absorbed
• Add another ladle of stock, stir
• Continue adding stock and stirring as each ladleful is absorbed
•  As stock comes near to being absorbed, taste for consistency
• If you have used all the stock and the rice is still undercooked, substitute water and continue until it is ready
• Whip in parmesan cheese and butter
• Rest for a few minutes, covered
• Serve

It should only take around 20-30 minutes from start to finish.

Hummus

Out of all the dips I make, the hummus invariably gets the most positive comments.

The recipe is simplicity itself.


Ingredients:
1 x 400g can of chick peas (reserve a few for the garnish)
2 tbsp of juice from the can
Juice of 2-3 lemons (depends on juiciness of lemons, use your judgement and adjust it to taste)
2 x garlic gloves, peeled and crushed
Large pinch sea salt (Maldon, Sicilian or similar)
Small pinch cayenne
125-150ml tahini paste

Add all ingredients except the tahini paste to a food processor.

Turn on food processor and blitz until it is uniformly smooth with the consistency of thin cream.

Leave processor running and add tahini gradually until the desired thickness is reached. I take it to a thickened cream type consistency.

Serve hummus, garnish with reserved chick peas, sprinkle with Za'tar or paprika, drizzle with olive oil and serve.

Tip: Not all tahinis are good in hummus, experiment until you find one you like. Equally, not all lemons are good in hummus: try to avoid ones that are bitter. 

Zucchini Salmon

This dish is unashamedly lifted from a video by Daniel Humm from Eleven Madison Park.

It comprises zucchini finely sliced on a mandoline placed on a salmon fillet to look like scales. The fish is then vacuum packed and cooked sous vide. Prior to serving it is painted with some melted butter to give a glazed effect.

The dish is accompanied by stuffed zucchini flowers (I stuffed them with ricotta and cooked, finely diced, onions, carrot and celery).

The sauce is a hollandaise with diced grilled and peeled red capsicum through it as well as parsley oil dots.

Fish Vera Cruz

Off to Mexico for dinner tonight with a colourful tomato and fish dish.

I got some nice schnapper and decided to make Pescado a la Veracruzana (fish Vera Cruz). It is an easy dish. Simply fry some onion until translucent then add a can of diced tomatoes and cook until it is a sauce-like consistency. Cut your fish into bite sized pieces and layer them in a buttered casserole dish with some capers, sliced pimento, pickled jalapeno peppers, and the tomato sauce. Cook in a moderate oven for twenty minutes, add some olives and cook for a further ten minutes.

After you add the olives, dry fry some sliced almonds in a non-stick pan until crisp. Set aside.

For the rice, mix some Annatto paste with some chicken stock and tomato paste. Pour over cooked rice and mix well.

When serving, sprinkle some of the crispy sliced almonds over the fish to give a crunch in the dish.

Lobster Risotto

I had some left over frozen Canadian lobster claws and was in search of a dish to use them in (this seems to be a common theme).

I'd been wanting to try Thomas Keller's method of poaching lobster in a Buerre Monté for a while. Not being content (as usual) to follow recipes, I added a split vanilla pod, a touch of salt and white wine vinegar. The lobster was poached gently at around 60C to heat through and left to infuse. It was brought back up to temperature prior to serving.


I cooked up a basic blond chicken stock risotto to serve it on. The lobster was just cooked, flavoured and al dente to the bite. The risotto added a fat mouth feel without the fat but did not overpower the lobster taste.


Why vanilla? I've been playing around with the "Flavor Bible" (by Karen Page and Andrew Dornenburg) and this was one flavour combination that they recommended.

Modern surf and turf

Like most of my self created dishes, this one started out as one ingredient. In this case it was pork belly. I wanted to try to cook some sous vide and, after some research on different times and temperature combinations, decided on cooking for three days (72 hours) at 63.5C.

Now what to do with it? Pork and scallops is sometimes used as a modern day surf and turf so that formed the basis of the dish concept.

Having a key ingredient presented three ways is a good way of doing a dish but I wanted to keep away from either more pork belly or from slabs of pork that would detract from the belly as the core ingredient. Fortunately charcuterie gave a number of viable alternatives. I decided on fried serrano ham and blood sausage to give different tastes and textures.

The cooked pork belly was sliced, seared over high heat and dressed with a cider glaze (basically a small bottle of cider reduced down to a glaze with a bit of sugar and salt added). The searing served to cook the fat that was not altered sufficiently by the temperature at which the pork was cooked.

The pork was served with a cauliflower purée made by cooking the vegetable in milk and then processing it into a purée with a bit of the cooking liquor. It was also accompanied by seared scallops (one topped with some Avruga), pork jus, and wilted baby spinach.

The design intention behind the dish, like most of my dishes was to include complementary flavours, contrasting textures, and visual appeal.