Lekker: Inverness Risotto

I wrote this post instead of doing homework. College is going great, thank you for asking.

Today's post is about one of my favourite dishes that I was introduced to by my old roommate, TB. (Remember him?) This is his classic, so I've named it after the street we used to live on: Inverness Risotto.

Risotto is awesome. I rarely get to eat it because it's basically just carby indulgence, but it's SO GOOD and there are so many ways to change it up. This recipe is my favorite and the way I remember TB making it most often: just mushrooms, peas, and onions. It's a classic flavour combination and I'm sure you'll love it. If you don't...well, sucks to be you I guess.

Hungry yet?

Risotto is awesome, but it's also time consuming. It needs constant attention, much like a baby or a needy girlfriend, but you can't eat a baby.

You've probably heard before that if you want nice fluffy rice with properly separated grains, you never stir or otherwise disturb the rice when cooking. The exact opposite is true of risotto. That's because stirring rice during cooking releases the starch in the grains, and starch is a thickener--a necessary component for risotto but one that results in goopy rice for other dishes.

The point is, don't assume you can multitask very well whilst making this dish. Fortunately the end result is totally worth it, and to me the constant stirring and monitoring is oddly soothing.

Stretching the definition of science here, but that's as science-y as I feel like getting. 

Don't trouble yourselves about the shrimp-looking things in there. That's langosteen, and it's like the middle child between shrimp and lobster (aka it's amazeballs) but it's completely wasted hidden in here. #imessedup

Inverness Risotto
serves 4

What You Need
3 T unsalted butter
1 T olive oil
1 cup Arborio rice
1 cup dry white wine (You know me, it's always Sauvingnon Blanc over here.)
3 cups chicken or vegetable broth
~6 oz baby bella mushrooms, finely diced (I know, that's a dumb measurement and I'm sorry; basically it wound up being 6 mushrooms but it really depends what size they are. Just use your judgement and remember that mushrooms shrink considerably when cooked; risotto is all about proportion between rice and other ingredients.)
1 cup peas, fresh or frozen & thawed
1/2 a yellow onion, finely diced (You could use a shallot instead if you want.)
1/4 cup shredded Parmesan cheese
Zest of 1/2 a lemon
Salt & freshly ground pepper, to taste (Though you probably won't need any salt since most broth is salty enough.)

What You Do
1. So you've lovingly diced up your onion and mushrooms so that they're approximately the size of a pea, yes? (Well, the mushrooms can be slightly bigger since they'll shrink down during cooking, but you get it. You're smart. You also look extra fabulous today, if I may say so. Those pants make your butt look great!) My point is that you want consistency in size for a risotto.

Shit. Where was I.

Okay so in a medium sized deep saucepan or wok (anything you'd do a stir fry in really) over medium heat, melt one tablespoon of the butter. Add the diced onions and cook them until they're soft and translucent and all kinds of golden-brown delicious. Remove them into a bowl and cover to keep warm.

2. Add the second tablespoon of butter, melt, and add the mushrooms, cooking THOSE until they're also kinds of soft and golden-brown delicious. Nom nom nom. Dump those in the same bowl with the onions.

3. Now the fun starts! If you have laundry that needs to go into the dryer or a wine glass that needs to be topped off, now's the time to do that because you're about to set up shop at the stove for about 30 minutes.

The mushrooms will have soaked up the majority of that butter, so go ahead and toss in that final tablespoon of butter along with the tablespoon of olive oil. Once the butter is melted, toss in your dry rice. This is a process called "toasting" and quite frankly it adds such a delicious deep, nutty flavour to rice that I think it should be done before cooking ANY rice dish. But anyway. Stir the rice very often so it doesn't get burned, and after about 3-4 minutes you should be able to smell that lovely nuttiness and see the grains beginning to turn translucent at the very edges.

4. Slowly stir in the wine and turn the heat down to a simmer. Keep stirring. Stir again. Park your ass at that stove and don't expect to go anywhere for the next 20 minutes, because that's what you do with risotto. You stir it and baby it and gently coax all that delicious starch out of those grains and TRUST ME, it is worth it.

5. Wine's all gone? (I mean the wine in the pan, not the one in your hand. I am *sure* that's gone.) Excellent, now time for the chicken broth. Add 1 cup of warm chicken broth, stir, and cook until mostly gone. Repeat with the second cup.

6. When it comes time to add the third cup, toss in your onions, mushrooms, peas, lemon zest, and cheese at this point as well. Keep cooking and stirring (gently now) until about half of the liquid is absorbed (it should still be reasonably creamy), and voila. You have risotto!

Serve as a side dish, or just enjoy an indulgent bowl of carb wonder.

Lekker: Slow Cooker Red Beans & Rice

So with all my salads and lean soups I've been having here lately I began craving some protein, especially since I'm back to my regular workouts at the gym and gotta feed those muscles! (Hah. Hah.) Beans are awesome because when combined with brown rice they're a great complete source of protein (although this recipe amps things up by adding sausage, because yum) and they're inexpensive and easy to prepare. Plus, I was feeling hella lazy and wanted to put my slow cooker to work overnight so I would have a yummy meal ready to take to work and share with a hard-pressed coworker. Wins, all around!

With this much protein and fiber to fill you up in one bowl, you don't need much to be satisfied--perfect for sticking to that New Year's diet and still indulge in some bangin' comfort food.

Slow Cooker Red Beans & Rice

What You Need

1 1/2 pounds smoked pork sausage, preferably andouille (don't be a lazy ass, just look at the packages there, I'm sure you'll find some; just make sure it's smoked and not raw)

1 green bell pepper, diced

1 medium onion, diced

4 celery stalks, diced (we're going for equal proportions here, see?)

3 cloves garlic, minced

2 T Creole seasoning (Tony Chachere's rules the roost in my house)

1 pound dry red beans, picked over for debris and rinsed in a strainer

6 cups low sodium chicken broth (sausage has enough salt guys)

2 bay leaves

Hot cooked BROWN OR MIXED WILD rice, to serve (Quit it with that flavourless white shit, it's boring and bad for you and brown rice has way more flavour and fiber. These days there are zillions of "cooks in 90 seconds" microwavable bags to choose from.)

This is so easy it's stupid.

What You Do

1. Slice the sausages lengthways down the middle, then crossways into little half-moons. Fry in just a touch of oil over medium heat in a large skillet until well browned, then scoop aside onto a paper towel lined plate to drain. In the residual sausage drippings, fry up the bell pepper, onions, celery and garlic until just lightly soft and golden.

2. Throw everything into the slow cooker, stir, and cook on high for 6 hours or on low for 8. Good luck swallowing all the saliva you'll be drowning in as your kitchen smells better and better and better. Don't worry about the liquid content until the very end. If it's too watery for you, just crush up some of the beans with a potato masher to act as a thickener. Voila! Serve over hot cooked rice.

Lekker: Avgolemono

Avgo-what? AV-GO-LEMONO. I know, I still can't really say it right. Apparently you don't really pronounce the "g" as a "g", it's more like a "y" sound that exists in Greek. Since I do not actually know Greek, I'm sort of at a loss--but I'm pronouncing it "av-yo-lem-ONO" in my head.

I assume you've gathered by this point that this dish involves lemon and that would be correct. It's a traditional Greek soup consisting of chicken and rice (or orzo) in an egg-lemon broth. Yeah, yeah, I'm at it again with soups. LOOK! I'm trying to slim back down after the sheer overindulgence of the holidays, and soups and salads are the best way to do that. Deal with it. Plus, it's snowy and cold up here and I slipped on a patch of ice on Friday, falling and cracking my tailbone--so I needed some comfort.

Plus, I had some rotisserie chicken left over from my Thai Chicken Noodle Soup the other night, and ballin' on a budget means nothing goes to waste around here.

I had this again next-day with a small Greek salad and some crusty bread. Quiet, warm comfort at its finest.

Avgolemono
makes about 4 servings

What You Need
4 tablespoons butter or olive oil
1 small yellow onion, diced finely
1 leek, white and light green parts only, washed well and sliced down the middle, then sliced into thin half-moons
1/2 cup uncooked orzo or Arborio rice (I used orzo because it's what I had on hand, and I like it better than rice--in case you don't know, orzo is actually pasta in a small elongated shape similar to rice. It made an appearance in my Italian Lemon Chicken Orzo Soup, but I think the next time I make this dish I'll try rice.)
1/3 cup white wine (Totally optional and I highly doubt it's traditionally Greek, but if you know me at all of course I had a glass of white wine in hand while I was cooking--Oyster Bay Sauvignon Blanc, if you must know--so in it goes.)
5 cups of chicken broth (or stock, whatever) plus 1 cup water
2 cups shredded precooked chicken
3 eggs
4 tablespoons lemon juice, fresh squeezed if you have it (Cut it down to 3 tablespoons if you don't like things really lemony--but if you don't like lemon why the heck are you making this anyway???)
Salt 'n peppah, to taste

What You Do
1. Okidoke let's get this show on the road! In a large stock pot over medium heat, melt the first two tablespoons butter or oil. Throw in your leek and onion and cook for about 5 minutes until things start to get all golden and translucent and shit. This is about the time I throw the wine in too and cook it down until all the wine has evaporated and been absorbed.

Now, you kinda gotta multi-task here because you have to cook the orzo at the same time, too. In a separate pot, melt the other two tablespoons of butter/oil over medium heat and throw in the orzo. WHAT?! Isn't it going to burn? No, calm your jets guys. Cooking raw orzo over medium heat in butter or oil toasts it, giving it a beautiful golden colour and nutty, toasted flavour. (Works for rice too.) This is an extra step and of course you don't have to do it, you can just toss the orzo and water in a pot and boil away--but I do it because it's easy and delicious. But yeah, once you're all nicely toasted (and the orzo is too, I suppose) pour in enough water to cover well and let boil for about 9 minutes to al dente perfection.

Some say you can just throw the raw orzo into the soup and let it cook in the broth. I don't like doing this, because pasta releases starch into the water it cooks in and I don't like that starch mucking up my silky perfect broth.

2. Shit, where were we? Oh, right. OK so the orzo is cooking away in the small pot and your onions and leeks have cooked away with the wine in the big pot. Now throw in the chicken broth and water and the shredded cooked chicken and let that simmer away gently. When the orzo is done, drain it and add to the big pot.

3. Now's the time to make the egg-lemon part. This is the only vaguely tricky part, but if you can do two things at once (whisk with one hand and pour with the other) you'll be fine. We'll be tempering the eggs--which means warming them up/cooking them gently before adding it to the hot broth so that they don't just scramble like Egg Drop Soup. That's ugly and gross. Do you want stringy threads of scrambled eggs in your soup? No, so pay attention!

In a medium mixing bowl, whisk the three eggs together until frothy. One tablespoon at a time, whisk in the lemon juice until well incorporated. It should look frothy and creamy at this stage and a light yellow colour. Now with one hand, keep whisking steadily. With the other, slowly add in one ladleful of hot broth from the big pot. Do this two to three more times. Ta-dah! You've successfully tempered eggs. Now turn OFF the stove, and slowly pour THAT mixture into the big pot, whisking away. You're done.

DO NOT let it boil once you've added the egg/lemon mixture. It'll break and you'll get Egg Drop Soup. Be gentle when you reheat this the next day, too. Microwave on half power and stir often.

Enjoy, beauties, and dream of the warm and sunny Greek isles amidst all this chilly nonsense.