Risotto
I had never made risotto before unless it came out of a box. At first it seemed daunting, but that may have been more a reflection of how overwhelmed I have been feeling about work. I printed out the recipe and after a quick read through and a heavy sigh I put it aside.
Then one night a couple of weeks later it was a very unseasonably warm and spring like. Suddenly the "seasonal affective disorder" type symptoms lifted like a cloud and we honey and I looked at each other and said "Let's grill a STEAK on the smoker!" (Honey's been loving the ole' fashioned meat smoker he got for Christmas). Suddenly my mind stopped - hey, what about RISOTTO with that steak?!? I sifted through piles and found my printed out copy and rushed to the store.
Because near my house is only a basic, basic grocery store I was unable to find proper risotto rice but instead bought a Calrose Brown medium grain rice. In my freezer was some chicken stock from a smoked chicken we had a few weeks ago (I tell ya, honey's gettin into the smokn' thing!), and also some Chanterelle mushrooms that I had partially cooked a couple of months ago when the season started.
When re-reading the directions I thought, hey this doesn't seem too complicated at all! But I underestimated the time and realized too late that the risotto was going to take longer than it would take for the steak to cook. Ever cool honey told me "don't panic" and turned the temp down on the smoker to low cook those steaks while my rice absorbed the stock.
In the end we had a pretty darn good mushroom risotto to go with some pretty darn tasting steaks! Once again, a great team of Kitchy Vicky and Smokn' Scott!
Making risotto with brown calrose med rice WOW it seems to have worked excellently. Your rice is so creamy and scrumptious and the texture looks prefect. Superbly done on this challenge. I really like the shine of your rice and the smoked meat looks so juicy. Cheers from Audax in Sydney Australia.
ReplyDeleteOne thing I noticed is that you should place in your posting is the blog checking lines that way the web-robot can check your posting off the list as completed. The blog checking lines for this challenge are:
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.
Each challenge has it own blog checking lines. They are found near the start of the challenge recipe. No big deal.
Enjoyed reading your post. Congratulations on your first risotto. It looks great!
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