Tag Archives: risotto

Red radicchio in risotto with pancetta and red wine

Posted on June 17, 2012 | Leave a comment

Radicchio (pronounced rah-dee-kee-oh) – from the chicory family – is a leafy vegetable that is native to the Veneto/Trentino regions in the northeast of Italy. In the 1970s you could not find seeds to grow it in Melbourne. When my sister got married and my nonna Carolina came here for the wedding, she smuggled a whole lot of seeds for green radicchio in her suitcase. She was stopped by Customs at Melbourne airport – she was in her late seventies and did not speak a word of English and was brilliant at feigning surprise – but the whole lot was confiscated anyway, much to my father’s dismay.

You can buy the seeds now from stockists such as Cardamone in Fairfield and buy some varieties fresh at the market. The red variety, which is what I am writing about today, is used most frequently in cooking – it is slightly bitter and can be spicy. The types that are most commonly available in Australia are radicchio rosso di Chioggia (round red leaves, about 10cm diameter), radicchio rosso di Verona (elongated round leaves, the outer ones are green/red striped) and radicchio rosso di Treviso (the elongated type). The words Treviso, Verona and Chioggia refer to places in Veneto where the vegetable is grown and they are protected names.

Radicchio rosso di Treviso ready to eat

Radicchio (radicio in our dialect) rosso is great in cooking. It is a winter vegetable so its bitter taste matches beautifully with hearty meals. The redder the leaves, the greater the bitterness. If you don’t like the bitterness, you can soak the leaves in water for a period of time (10 minutes to an hour) to make it sweeter. I use either the Chioggia (pronounced key-oh-jar) or Treviso varieties to make my red risotto. The Chiogga type has more bitterness so it should be soaked before using for cooking. If you use the Treviso variety, you will need to remove most of the white spine of each leaf.

Radicchio rosso di Chioggia

Risotto is the perfect dish to complement red radicchio. Regular readers of this blog will know that risotto is my fast food. Read here for tips on making the perfect risotto. This recipe ticks all the boxes – bitter, sour, salty and sweet plus the rice is cooked in an equal proportion of stock to red wine. Brown sugar is used to counteract any residual bitterness, creamy butter and parmiggiano are stirred through and aged balsamic is drizzled on top. Aged balsamic is quite expensive – if you don’t have any, don’t use the cheap variety – just omit this step. Enjoy this meal shared with your loved ones and a glass of peppery Shiraz on a cold winter evening.

Red risotto
Serves 4
50g pancetta, diced (2mm)
1 red onion, diced
1 red radicchio, thinly sliced (and soaked in water if bitter, then drained)
1/2 tablespoon brown sugar
Olive oil
1/2 glass full bodied red wine (to cook radicchio)
2 cups Carnaroli rice
2 cups chicken stock (preferably home made)
2 cups full bodied red wine
1 teaspoon red wine vinegar
75g unsalted butter
A bit of extra red wine to stir in at the end of cooking
75g grated parmiggiano
Aged balsamic vinegar for drizzling over prepared risotto

Cook the pancetta for 15 minutes on low heat until the fat renders and the pancetta starts to crisp in a non-stick pan. Remove the pancetta from the pan and set aside. Add some olive oil to the fat in the pan and add the onion and radicchio. Simmer for about 20 minutes, adding 1/2 glass of wine when it starts drying out. Add the sugar and stir to dissolve. Add the cooked pancetta, the red wine vinegar and salt and pepper to taste. Keep warm on low heat until needed.

Red risotto drizzled with aged Balsamic vinegar

In the meantime, heat the chicken stock and wine in a small saucepan. Heat the rice in your risotto saucepan (a large non-stick one works well). When the rice warms up add the warmed stock/wine – the rice and the liquid should be approximately the same temperature. Simmer on low heat with the lid on for 12 minutes.

After 12 minutes increase the heat of the saucepan with the rice, remove the lid and add the radicchio mixture. Stir well. Add some boiling water as needed and stir every now and until the rice is cooked (about another 8 – 10 minutes). Adjust for salt. Stir in the butter. When the butter has melted, add another slug of red wine. Remove from the heat after a minute. Stir in the parmiggiano, put on the lid and let it rest for a few minutes.

Serve on white plates, drizzled with some aged balsamic.

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It’s a mushroom kind of planet – risotto made from flavours of the forest

Posted on April 29, 2012 | 3 Comments

As leaves start to turn yellow, I think of all the beautiful autumn fruit and vegetables that I will find at the market. Mushrooms are among my favourite of these. My cousin tells a story of how she did not like eating mushrooms as a child. Her mother made delicious funghi trifolati (braised mushrooms) and she would eat them only so that if her family died of mushroom poisoning, she would too! She eventually grew to love them (and no-one died because of them).

There is an amazing variety of mushrooms in Italy. I took this photo at the Rialto Market in Venezia one October (northern hemisphere autumn) and there were wonderful finferle, chiodini and porcini for sale. Although these types of mushrooms are not available fresh in Australia, we can easily find wonderfully tasty swiss brown mushrooms, tiny enoki mushrooms, shitake mushrooms, portobello mushrooms as well as your usual button mushrooms and others.

Porcini mushrooms are particularly sought after for their earthy flavour and meaty texture. Italians go mad over them. In Australia you can buy dried porcini and even porcini in a jar with a wooden “mushroom” lid. Italians just love kitsch packaging!

Regular readers may have noted that risotto is my thing. I make it with almost anything. I also make it the no stir method, which is simpler than standing there stirring continuously! Rather than making a mushroom risotto, tonight I decided to make a risotto alla boscaiola (risotto made with ingredients from the forest) – pronounced Bos-kah-ee-oh-la. This includes mushrooms (dried porcini and fresh local mushrooms) as well as Italian pork sausages. This risotto is earthy and flavoursome. I use home made chicken stock to cook the risotto as well as a good slug of wine and the warm water left over from soaking the dried porcini. The textures in this risotto contribute to the overall experience – creamy rice, meaty field mushrooms and tender pork sausage. Match this with a glass of Nebbiolo on an autumn evening, and you will really feel like you have just stepped out of the forest.

Risotto alla boscaiola
Serves 4
2 good quality italian pork sausages
1/2 glass of white wine
extra virgin olive oil
1/2 brown onion, finely diced
400g various mushrooms (I used a mix of swiss brown and large field mushrooms), wiped clean and sliced/diced depending on type of mushroom
25g dried porcini mushrooms
2 cups risotto rice (I use Carnaroli)
4 cups chicken stock
50g unsalted butter at room temperature
75g grated parmigiano cheese
salt (as needed)
1/2 bunch parsley, leaves picked and chopped finely

Remove the sausages from their casings and cook the meat in a pan on low heat for around 10 minutes until well cooked but not crisped. The pork will release fat for the cooking process. In the meanwhile, soak the dried porcini mushrooms in some warm water in a small bowl (they should soak for at least 10 minutes). Remove the cooked pork from the pan and set to one side.

In the same pan, add a dash of olive oil to the fat that has been left behind from the pork and saute’ the onions on low to medium heat until soft. Add the chopped mushrooms (I have big meaty pieces of mushroom in my risotto so they are not chopped too finely). Once the mushrooms are warmed through, add the white wine and cook on medium heat and let the wine evaporate. While the mushrooms are cooking, remove the porcini from the bowl in which they have been soaking and cut them into smallish pieces. Keep the soaking liquid to one side.

Once the wine in the pan has reduced, add the porcini plus most of the soaking liquid (discard the liquid at the bottom of the bowl which has sediment). Cover and reduce heat.

Heat the chicken stock to a rolling boil in a small saucepan. While the chicken stock is warming up, place the rice in a large non-stick saucepan. Turn the heat to medium. Once the rice is heated through (but before the grains toast), add the warmed stock. The rice and the stock should be approximately the same temperature so the rice starts cooking immediately. Reduce the heat and cover, allowing the rice to absorb the stock for 10 minutes. In the meantime, add the cooked pork mince to the mushrooms. The mushrooms and pork should slowly simmer as the rice cooks. Add some more white wine if needed as this should remain a bit wet.

After 10 minutes the liquid should have been absorbed by the rice. Remove the lid and give the risotto a really good stir. Add the mushroom and pork mixture and most of the chopped parsley. The rice will need to cook about another 5 minutes to reach the right consistency. Have some boiling water on the side and add it to the rice if it looks like drying out. You will need to stir reasonably frequently at this point. Once the risotto is almost soft (taste it – the grains should be soft on the inside but still maintain their shape), add the butter and stir until melted. Then add the grated parmigiano. Remove from the heat, put the lid on and allow to rest for a few minutes before serving.

Serve with some grated parmigiano and some parsley for garnish. And don’t forget that glass of red wine!

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Zucchini flowers – the story continues with Prosecco risotto

Posted on February 13, 2012 | 1 Comment

Risotto is my thing. It just is. Whenever I feel happy, or feel sad, or want fast food, or slow food, I cook risotto. That means that I want it most of the time and make it several times each week. A few weeks ago I wrote a blog post about tiny fried female zucchini flowers and I loved them so much I thought I had finished exploring recipes with zucchini flowers for their very short season. I was wrong!

I went to the Slow Food Market at the Abbottsford Convent a few weeks ago and I found some beautiful male zucchini flowers. The ones without a tiny zucchino attached. I was inspired by the fact that a brown paper bag full of them was only $4. The old Italian lady I bought them from asked me if I was going to make pasta with them…”no”, I replied with sudden inspiration, “I am making risotto!” I don’t why I was so sure that this was the right thing to do – I had never eaten zucchini flower risotto nor made it before, but it felt right. I wanted to pair two things that I loved so much – risotto and zucchini flowers.

So I went home and searched through my cookbooks. I couldn’t find any recipes that matched my feel of what a zucchini flower risotto should be. Many of them had tomato in them and the delicacy of the flower did not seem to match with the gutsiness of the tomato. So I searched some more. Then I found it – an inspired combination – zucchini flowers and Prosecco. To this I added lots of grated Parmiggiano and some butter. I made it last night to some fanfare from my husband Mark. The beautifully light zucchini flower, the acid fruitness of the Prosecco and the salty parmigiano really are a heavenly combination. Another bonus was that it allowed us to share the rest of the bottle of Prosecco with dinner, which was a bit of a treat.

Prosecco, in case you don’t know, is a lovely dry sparkling wine that originates from the Veneto region of Italy, in the hills just north of Treviso, which is where my mother was born. It is a bit like champagne. You could probably use champagne in this recipe, just make sure you use a dry one. The King Valley in Victoria produces some fine Prosecco such as the one made by Dal Zotto Wines, which is one of my favorites. They have an interesting article about the origins of their Prosecco. Click here to read it.

There are 3 secrets to great risotto:

1. The quality of the rice. I use Italian Carnaroli rice rather than Arborio. You can also use Vialone Nano. I like the texture of the Carnaroli and the larger grain. The grains tend to retain their shape better than Arborio. I buy mine at the Mediterranean Wholesalers in Brunswick, where you are spoilt for choice with types and brands of Italian rice.

2. The quality of the stock. Home made chicken stock is ideal for most risotti, though fish and some vegetable stocks are also good depending on the type of risotto you are making. I always have a supply of 1 cup containers of chicken stock in the freezer. If you don’t make your own, you can buy it from your local fresh chicken shop. I have cheated on occasion and bought some from the chicken shop and was surprised by the quality. Don’t buy the cheap supermarket variety though as you will have a salty and inferior flavour.

3. The proportion of liquid to rice is two to one. So if you use one cup of rice, you need two cups of liquid.

Risotto for me really is fast food. That is because I mostly use the no stir method. This means you can actually go and do something else while it is cooking. It was particularly good when my daughter was little and I worked full time – I would put the risotto on, get a glass of wine, get changed after a long day at work and 12 minutes later, I would be back to do the last 5 minutes of cooking. You can also use the stir method, where you add a bit of warm stock as you go, stirring almost continuously. When I do this, for me it becomes slow food and the stirring action and creation of the risotto is a relaxation within itself.

If you are going to try the recipe below, be quick! Zucchini flower season ends in late summer. So you will either have to bookmark this recipe for next year or else find a supplier. Brad’s Produce in the Yarra Valley grows and supplies various shops around Melbourne with zucchini flowers for an extended season from November to May.

Remember to have a glass of Prosecco whilst enjoying this risotto. E’ delizioso!

Zucchini flower risotto with Prosecco

Serves 2

1 cup Carnaroli rice
1/2 onion, finely diced
2 tablespoons olive oil
1 cup chicken stock
1 cup Prosecco
12 – 15 male zucchini flowers
50g unsalted butter
50g grated parmigiano
Salt to taste
Boiling water (just have the kettle on and use a little if needed)
1/4 cup Prosecco extra

Warm the stock and cup of Prosecco in a small saucepan. Heat the olive oil in a heavy bottom saucepan. Add the rice and warm it through on medium heat until it is warm enough to still hold in your hand but not browned (pick up a small handful and feel how hot it is). It needs to be the same temperature as the stock/Prosecco mixture. Add the liquid and the onion to the warmed rice, stir. It should be close to boiling. Put a lid on the saucepan, turn down the heat so that there is a slow steady simmer on the rice. This should cook for 12 minutes.

In the meanwhile, prepare the zucchini flowers by removing the stem, the base of the flower and the central pistil. Gently wask and pat dry. Cut each flower into 4 lengthways, reserving 2 whole flowers as a garnish. You can cut the flowers into more pieces but I like to see the larger yellows streaks through the risotto.

Check the risotto after 10 minutes. If the rice is looking completely dry, add a bit of boiling water (2 or 3 tablespoons should do). check the risotto at 12 minutes. Give it a really good stir (to make up for the lack of stirring throughout the cooking). Add the zucchini flowers. Stir again and add a bit more boiling water if dry. Stir a bit more. After a minute or two, taste the rice to see if it is cooked to your liking. If it is, stir in the butter and wait for it to melt then stir again. If it is not yet cooked, add a bit more boiling water and stir, waiting another minute. Salt to taste but remember that the Parmiggiano is also salty so be careful not to over salt.

When the rice is cooked and the butter has been incorporated, add the parmigiano and stir through. Remove from the heat. Add the reserved warmed Prosecco and put a lid on the saucepan. Allow to rest for a minute or two. Serve garnished with reserved zucchini flowers and more parmigiano if desired.

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