Lemon Rice--Easy Dish from Italy

A couple of months ago in my local public library I bought for one dollar a second-hand book about Italian cuisine. It was published in 1968. I got it, out of curiosity, hoping for an original recipe.

I liked this book very much. It gives a overview of the Italian cuisine by regions. The recipes are very traditional and typical of the areas they come from. I also love the old pictures of people, places, and dishes that bring back the atmosphere of Italy in the 1960s.

Browsing through the book I found a recipe for lemon rice that looked interesting and I made it already on the following day. The dish comes from Piedmont and could not be simpler and more delicious. It is similar to risotto but does not require so much stirring. It instantly became my kids' favorite. I alternate it with a classic risotto which I make almost every week.

As I have been cooking this dish often I made already a few changes to the simplest recipe. I substituted one egg with cream which made this dish less eggy in taste and more creamy. I also add fresh parsley and, recently, also fresh herbs available from my garden--chives, marjoram, oregano, or thyme.



Lemon Rice
(Serves four)

Ingredients:
1 cup short grain rice, preferably, risotto type,
2 tbsp unsalted butter,
2 large eggs,
1/4 cup table cream,
1 cup freshly grated Parmesan cheese,
4 tsp lemon juice,
1 tbsp parsley,
1 tbsp mixed fresh herbs of your choice,
black pepper to taste.

Preparation:
1. In a large pot, bring to boil about 6 cups of water with 1 tbsp of salt.
2. When water boils add rice. Do it slowly, so that water still boils. Stir, reduce the heat, and let boil for about 15 minutes, until rice is tender.
3. In a medium bowl beat eggs with cream, and, when they are well combined, add lemon juice, Parmesan and herbs, if used.



4. In a large heavy duty pot, melt the butter over a low heat. When rice is ready drain it and add immediately to the pot with butter. Mix well.
5. Pour in eggs mixture to the rice. Stir and cook over low heat for about 2 minutes, stirring gently. When rice is creamy serve immediately, season with freshly ground black pepper, and serve accompanied by green salad.

Saffron Risotto with a Twist

Risotto seems to be a pretty well known dish but I was surprised to hear that some of my friends who are good cooks never made it, or one even expected risotto to be cooked from orzo pasta. After my trip to Italy when I was raving about food I had, a friend asked me for a good risotto recipe. So here it comes.

Risotto, because it is so simple, like many simple dishes has its secrets which make it special. Sometime the secret lies in the recipe and sometimes in the quality of the ingredients. I admit that since my host in Rome showed me each step of the process, also my risotto has improved a lot.

In this case, the most important secret is to have a good, preferably home made stock, which is added during the whole process. I make mine from scratch or use an organic free range chicken stock, which is a good substitute. Also, butter used to fry should be only melted, not fried and the onion or shallot and all other ingredients should be chopped finely or grated, so they are detectable in taste rather than in texture. Bigger pieces are added usually at the end for finishing. A real good quality Italian Parmesan also makes difference.

Most often I cook saffron risotto, since it has become my kids favorite. Saffron adds not only a beautiful color but also the aroma. Moreover, saffron risotto is often just a base and different ingredients are added to it, beside saffron.

During my recent trip to Italy I visited one of the famous restaurants in Florence: Caffè Giubbe Rosse. I had saffron risotto with zucchini, finished with scamorza affumicata (smoked cheese a bit similar to mozzarella), which was melted on top and gave an extra smokey taste to the delicate risotto. So today I share this recipe.

Saffron Risotto with Scamorza
(Serves four)

Ingredients:
1 and 1/3 cup Arborio rice,
2 shallots, peeled off and finely chopped
3 tbsp butter,
1 glass of white wine,
a pinch of saffron powder or saffron threads,
4-5 cups good quality stock of your choice,
2 zucchinis, grated,
1/2 cup grated, Italian parmesan,
4 tbsp table cream,
4-6 thin slices Scamorza cheese (available for instance in Giant's gourmet cheese section),
salt and pepper to taste.

Preparation:
1. Place stock on a pot and heat it until hot. If you use saffron threads, rather than saffron powder, let them soak in the stock. Keep the stock hot during the cooking of risotto.
2. In a large heavy duty pan melt butter until liquid but do not let it fry. Add chopped shallots and them fry over medium heat for about 5 minutes, until shallots becomes transparent. Add Arborio rice and fry for about one minute, until grains are coated.

3. Add wine to rice and cook stirring constantly until wine almost completely evaporates.
4. Pour in about a half a cup of stock and cook stirring until liquid is absorbed. Repeat until you use about 2/3 of the stock. Then add grated zucchinis and continue cooking and adding stock until rice is al dente and zucchinis still green.
5. Turn off the heat. Season risotto with salt (not much as stock is usually salted) and pepper. Add Parmesan, cream if you use, stir well, cover and let infuse for about 3 minutes.

6. Transfer hot risotto into serving plates, cover with thin slices of scamorza and serve.

Jerusalem Artichokes Risotto with Mascarpone Cheese

Risotto, like pasta, can be made with many ingredients. My favorite are always vegetarian. Recently, I have been cooking a lot of risottos as they are one of the few dishes that could make my picky kids happy.

When the other day I saw Jerusalem artichokes on the shelves of Harris Teeter I bought a bag of them with the idea of making this risotto. I thought that my kids probably would not try them alone but might accept them if I sneak them into a familiar and well-liked risotto.

Jerusalem artichokes are crunchy and have a quite neutral, slightly earthy and nutty flavor. They are very healthy owing, among others, to the high content of Vitamins B and C and, most importantly, very high level of the fiber called inulin, which is important for the health of the digestive tract and, it has been recently discovered, could usefully supplement weight-loss diets.

Jerusalem artichokes became one of my favorite vegetable discoveries. I have been experimenting with them a lot trying new recipes and including them into the old ones, as today's risotto.

I made this particular risotto with mascarpone cheese which I thought would nicely go with the taste of the artichokes. I finished it with broccoli sprouts that gave extra sharpness to the taste of the risotto and augmented the A, B, C, E, and K vitamin content.

Jerusalem Artichokes Risotto
(Serves 4–6)

Ingredients:

3/4 lb Jerusalem artichokes,
1 tbsp lemon juice,
1 and 1/2 cup Arborio rice, or any risotto type rice,
3 shallots, peeled and chopped,
2 tbsp butter,
2 tbsp olive oil,
1/2 cup dry white wine,
4 cups vegetable stock,
2 tbsp mascarpone cheese,
6 tbsp radish sprouts, or chopped Italian parsley,

Preparation

1. Peel off the artichokes using a vegetable peeler and place them in a bowl with water and lemon juice to prevent from discoloration.
2. Heat olive oil and butter in a large heavy duty frying pan. Add chopped shallots and fry over the medium heat for about 2 minutes.
3. Drain the artichokes, slice them, and then cut them into thick matchsticks. Add to the pan with shallots and fry together for about 5 minutes, until shallots are soft.

4. Add rice and cook on a medium heat, stirring for another minute until coated in vegetable ingredients and slightly toasted.
5. Pour in wine stirring continuously until wine almost evaporates.
6. Heat the vegetable stock in a separate pot and keep it hot. Add about half a cup of stock to the rice stirring continuously until mostly absorbed. Keep adding stock (about half a cup each time), stirring and letting each portion of stock to be absorbed before adding the next. At the end, rice should be cooked but chewy.
7. At last, add mascarpone cheese and mix. Season with salt if needed and freshly ground pepper. Turn off the heat, cover the pan, and let it stand briefly before serving.

Serve sprinkled with radish sprouts or parsley.

Pumpkin Risotto--Halloween Leftovers

Now, when the kids' excitement is gone, we are left with pounds of candy and pumpkins still sitting on the porch. This is the once-a-year occasion when I have a pumpkin at home and can experiment with it. I have already exceeded my own expectations and posted two recipes from the pumpkin family--Squash Gnocchi and Curried Pumpkin Soup also made from Butternut Squash, which could be enough tribute to the most popular ingredient in the American cuisine, but I still have that orange, scary face looking at me from the porch. And the more I look at it the more tempted I am to cook my first truly pumpkin dish--Pumpkin Risotto. I completely forgot about it, when writing the post about my pumpkin shyness. But then, I found this recipe when I browsed in my old recipes notebook.

Years ago, I had a wonderful and delicious pumpkin dish--it was a pumpkin risotto, made by Alessandra, an Italian friend who now lives in Paris. Not only it was the best pumpkin dish I have ever eaten, but also one of the best risottos I have ever had. It was a cold and rainy February day in Paris and with a bunch of friends but we were lucky to be invited to her place for dinner. We were all tired, cold, and hungry and this smooth and warm dish with a glass of a good red wine was the best that we could have dreamed off that night. Later I obtained from her that recipe but, until now, never tried to make it myself.

Risotto like pasta can be made almost with anything. The basic preparation steps are are more or less the same, and just the additional ingredients and the finishing make a difference. I will stick to Alessandra's recipe though as the Italian family recipe is the best reference.

Pumpkin Risotto
(Serves six)

Ingredients:
1 1/2 cup Arborio rice,
2 cups grated pumpkin,
4-6 cups vegetable or chicken stock,
2/3 cup white dry wine,
6-8 shallots or 1 large onion,
1/2 cup Parmesan cheese and extra for finishing,
2 tbsp oil,
4 tbsp butter,
2 tbsp chopped parsley,
2 tbsp crème fraîche or sour cream,
salt and pepper.

Preparation:
1. Heat the vegetable stock in a pot and keep it hot while preparing risotto.
2. In a frying pan melt butter and oil. Add chopped onion and cook for about 3 minutes until soft and transparent.
3. Peel the pumpkin, grate it at a grater with large holes, add it to the fried onion, and cook together for about 5 minutes.
4. Add rice, stir it together, and cook until the rice becomes almost toasted.
5. Pour in wine and cook until it is absorbed.
6. Add the first cup of the hot stock to rice and cook until the rice becomes dry.
7. Repeat by adding the stock cup by cup, waiting until each portion gets absorbed. After you use 4 cups of liquid try if the rice is soft, but still al dente. If you still feel that the grains of rice are hard inside add another one or two cups of stock and cook for a little longer. The whole process should take 30-40 minutes.
8. When the risotto has the desirable softness turn off the heat. Add Parmesan and crème fraîche, stir, cover the pot, and let it stand aside for 5 minutes.
9. Serve with freshly shredded Parmesan and pepper on top.

I happen to have in my refrigerator some truffle butter brought from France--you can buy it at the Paris airport. I put a teaspoon of it on each portion, which made this simple risotto more festive and sophisticated.