Conquering Risotto with Mushrooms

After all these years, I finally decided to take on risotto for dinner and a Monday night, no less.  It is the dish that I’ve seen Gordon Ramsey break down young chefs with.

I, being the smart chick I am – checked out several recipes before committing and it was quickly apparent that one recipe was worthy of my attention.   Yep, Martha Stewart came through.  Of the 10 recipes I reviewed, she actually made a mushroom stock out of the mushroom stems and dried mushrooms I had in the pantry.  Sweet.

This is a recipe that requires regular stirring but if you are already preparing other things for dinner – its easy to attend for 25 minutes – Here’s the link to the recipe.  I made three slight changes – I reduced to 2 servings, used shallots instead of onions and used even less olive oil at the end.  Otherwise a pretty easy recipe to follow.

I served the risotto with seared sea scallops and sauteed Swiss chard.  Easy-peasy. Seared Scallops always turn out well with this recipe – from Alton Brown.

Swiss Chard is chopped, cleaned and cooked in 1 tbs butter and 1 tbs olive oil with one clove of garlic-chopped, salt and pepper to taste in high heat.  Take off heat to stand while plating the dishes.

I felt so accomplished for finally taking on risotto that I posted it to my FB page.  One of my  friends quickly informed me that risotto can be made hands-free in the oven with no stirring and no mess.  Well – Jeez, had I known that I wouldn’t have waited years to make the damn dish….but in the end it was good to know how to make it the slo-mo way.