risotto regalia

This is all about risotto. If you've never heard of it before or think you may have faintly caught the name before, I don't blame you. I've never heard or knew what it was till Jamie Oliver came along.

Basically, risotto is made with Arborio rice and cooked with preferably homemade chicken or vegetable stock over a medium to low heat while stirring in the stock one ladle at a time till the appropriate amount of stock has been absorbed by the rice.

The basic risotto and easiest one I could think of following comes from my beloved 'Cook with Jamie' book which has a beautiful illustration and guide to making the perfect risotto. Thankfully the basic risotto recipe could be found online as well. It's from this basic recipe that you begin to add your other flavours, ingredients and textures that go into making your favourite risotto.

Jamie's recipe calls for wine to be added as well but seeing as I don't drink or will bother to get some wine, I've just omitted it from my risotto and they came out fine all the same. The wine is just to give it a little something extra and aroma to the dish.

Risotto #1:

This was the first risotto dish I made after I managed to get my bag of arborio rice and some nice extra virgin olive oil. Yeah, it was supposed to resemble somewhat to the picture in 'Cook with Jamie' but after altering the dish here and there, it came out resembling more like reddish mush with flecks of green celery mixed in. The reddish tinge was created with the tomato I put into it at the last few moments of cooking it and squashed it a bit to let the juices out. Since it was my first risotto, it didn't taste much of anything but tomato and celery.

Risotto #2:

The second time round, I decided to be a bit more adventurous and tried carrots with a little bit of Parmesan cheese shavings melted in at the last moment. It was a little bit better this time but something was missing. I think I should've cut the carrots into smaller pieces instead of the big fat slices I used.

Risotto #3:

Then came the cheesy risotto. The inspiration came from Mr. Oliver once again from his website called the Three Cheese Risotto because of the three different cheeses he used in it. Well, I didn't have those cheeses he used but I did have three different cheeses which I basically just added in ad-hocly towards the end and let them all meld and melt into each other and incorporate nicely into the rice. The result was oozy, gooey, and ultimate comfort food at its best.

Risotto #4 & #5:

I was pretty disappointed with how this came out. It was supposed to be my interpretation of a Chinese style risotto but apparently Chinese and Italian doesn't go too well together. They both look the same because I used the same vegetable in the two dishes. They're Chinese spinach chopped roughly and stirred into the risotto towards the end as well. The fifth risotto dish was a bit different because I wanted to go all out and try something totally different. I added in some sambal chili paste but only a little and you can see the tiny flecks of chili in the dish as well. Needless to say, it tasted really odd and I'll not do it again.

Risotto #6:

This was my take on the traditional Italian Carbonara dish except I'm using arborio rice instead of the usual spaghetti or other form of pasta. I don't think egg and cheese whisked together goes well with risotto too. Better leave the carbonara to the pasta.

Risotto #7:

The final one in my risotto trial sessions. I've been using my own homemade chicken stock made by boiling a chicken frame in water and just using the stock from it for my risotto for the past dishes. I've basically just tore out the remainder of the chicken meat from the bony frame and used up all the stock left to make this seventh risotto. It tasted a lot like chicken. Nothing too fancy or difficult. Just added a pinch of salt and pepper and it makes a hearty chickeny risotto.

Overall, I'd say that this was a rather interesting experiment into the world of risotto. The best one out of the seven was the cheesy risotto and it'll definitely be a repeat when I've figured out the specifics that go into it and will post up the recipe too.

Just give risotto a go and don't be afraid of trying new things. All you need it some creativity, curiosity, and some improvisation to go a long way.