Thursday, March 22, 2012

Doin' it and Doin' it and Doin' it Rice - S1E19

I'm a simple gal... ok, that's a lie, I wish I were simple but I have fancy tastes.  I like my coffee brewed just for me, my food organic and my chocolate dark.  So, making something as elegant as risotto was both exciting and scary.  I mean chefs have nightmares about making this stuff, so it's a daunting idea but wo does't like a challenge.  Also, Naris hadn't ever had risotto before so his expectations were low.

Wild Mushroom and Asparagus Risotto - serves 6-8
Ingredients
6 cups chicken broth
1 cup dry white wine (didn't have any so we subbed more broth)
2 tablespoons unsalted butter
1 cup finely chopped onion
2 cups Arborio rice
5 oz wild mushrooms, cooked and coarsely chopped, approximately 3/4 cup
7 oz asparagus, cooked and cut into 1-inch pieces, approximately 1 1/2 cups
2 oz grated Parmesan, approximately 1/2 cup
1 tsp grated lemon zest
1/2 tsp freshly grated nutmeg (we subbed preground)
Kosher salt and freshly ground black pepper

Time for a stirring experience
First step, as always was to get my mise-en-place... in place.  Since my mushrooms were dried, I started them soaking in hot water.  I also weighed out many of my ingredient on my scale.
Once I had located all the appropriate ingredients, I began to defrost my handy dandy chicken broth cubes (Naris and I freeze unused broth in these silicon ice cube trays).
Note: I only made a half portion of the recipe, so we just needed 3.5 cups of broth.
While that melted, I got my pan heated up to medium and began to sweat my onions in the butter.  A few minutes and some translucent onions later, then I added the rice and cooked it until it began to turn translucent on the edges.  Then it was time to begin adding the liquid and stirring, each time adding just enough to cover the rice and keep it moist.
The first liquid addition, as you can see I burned a few of the onions :)
With each addition of liquid I continued to stir and/or shake the pan to absorb the liquid in to the rice.  About 40 minutes and 4 liquid additions later it was time to add the finishing touches.  I added the chopped asparagus, lemon zest, parmesan and nutmeg.
Less than an hour, a bit of an arm workout and there was our fancy dinner.

The Verdict:

Jesse:  Although I was happy with the way this turned out, it never got as creamy as at a restaurant.  I'd definitely say the restaurant had me beat on this one.  Hopefully practice makes perfect, especially at $15.87 for 2 with leftovers.

Home cooking: 8, Restaurants: 2

Naris:  This was tasty, I've never had risotto before so I don't really have anything to compare it to.

Home cooking: 9, Restaurants: 1

Until we cook again,
Jesse

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Cost Breakdown:

-Rice - $2.79
-Chicken broth - free, leftover from cooking a whole chicken a few weeks ago
-Onion - $1.24
-Butter - $0.10
-Mushrooms - $5.99 (had some leftover)
-Asparagus - $1.17
-Parmesan - $3.99 (had a bunch leftover)
-Lemon - $0.59, just used the rind
TOTAL: $8.79 for ingredients used in a half portion ($15.87 out of pocket)

1 comment:

  1. That's a good idea on the chicken broth cubes! I always waste broth..

    ReplyDelete