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.