Blog Check 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
On its face, the challenge was pretty straightforward and easily done. Then I read the fine print. We had to make our own stock. Again, easily done. The hard part was that we got to choose our own additions. That might seem simple enough but oh no.
The possibilities. Oh the possibilities: wild mushrooms and heavy cream; freshly chopped vegetables to add color, flavor and a good dose of healthiness; there’s seafood. Glorious abundant seafood. What about sundried tomatoes, black olives, green olive, nicoise olives, kalamata olives, artichoke hearts, spinach, arugula, kale, basil, chives, thyme and oregano. Or mascarpone, ricotta, feta, brie and countless other cheeses.
You see the dilemma here. Don’t you? Please. Say it isn’t just me. You do see the dilemma here? Don’t you?
I opted for a bit of this and a bit of that which is really one of the great attributes of risotto. You don’t need a lot of anything to change the flavor profile of the dish and you can eat risotto for weeks on end without making the same one twice.
I used half a red pepper, a handful of sliced button mushrooms, shrimp and I tossed in some frozen peas for color.
Here are recipes for the required elements:
Chicken Stock
Ingredients:
1 large chicken 2-3 pounds about 1 kg
chicken bones 2-3 pounds 1 kg
2 onions, roughly diced
1 medium leek – white part only, roughly diced
2 sticks celery, roughly diced
2 cloves garlic, halved
1 cinnamon stick
1 tsp. white peppercorns ( Any type of whole peppercorn will do)
2 bay leaves (fresh or dried, it doesn’t matter.)
peel of 1/2 lemon
1/4 tsp. allspice
Directions:
- Wash the chicken and bones and places in a 5 Litre pot, cover completely with water and bring to a boil
- Skim away any scum as it comes to the surface
- Add the vegetables and bring back to a boil
- Add the rest remaining ingredients and simmer very gently, uncovered for 1.5 hours
- Carefully lift out the chicken, set aside. The chicken meat can be removed from the chicken, shredded off and used for other things like soup!
- Simmer the stock gently for another hour. At , at the end you should have around 2 Liters
- Carefully ladle the liquid into a fine sieve, the less the bones and vegetables are disturbed in this process the clearer the stock will be.
The stock is now ready for use. Freeze what you don’t need for later use.
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:
- 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).
- Add the rice and stir for a few minutes to coat each grain of rice with oil and toast slightly.
- Add the wine and let it bubble away until evaporated.
- 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.
- Cook on medium heat, stirring with a wooden spoon from time to time, until most of the stock has been absorbed.
- Repeat Step 5 making sure to leave aside approximately 100 ml. of stock for the final step. .
- Repeat, save 100ml for the final stage.
- Once you are at this point, the base is made. You now get to add your own variation.
