Pear Risotto With Walnuts

If  you have done risotto properly a couple of times (if not, you can start from this mushroom risotto or the saffron risotto), this pear risotto with walnuts looks like an easy one, but it’s actually very easy to mess it up.

Here is what you’ll need for 2 people:

• 2 medium pears
• 150-200g (5-7oz) risotto rice
• 1 glass white wine
• a handful of walnuts, thinly chopped
• ½ liter (1 pint) vegetable stock
• 30g (1oz) butter
• grated Parmesan
• ½ onion, thinly chopped
• olive oil
• salt and pepper

About the pears: I’m not an expert and I’m also too lazy to google it, but you’ll need two different types: the soft yellowish one, and the hard green one.

Preheat the oven at 200°C (400°F).

Peel both pears, slice the soft one and thinly dice the hard one. Put the slices of the soft pear in a small pan, on low heat, pour ½ glass of white wine and enough water to cover them (probably one tablespoon or two). Cook for a few minutes until the slices are really soft and put aside.

Put the walnuts on the baking tray and toast them in the oven for 10 minutes.

Now you can start your risotto routine:

• sauté of olive oil and onion
• rice
• white wine
• one ladle of stock at the time

Add the soft pear half-way through, and the hard one almost in the end with walnuts. The point of all this is to have two different tasting pears: one soft, cooked and winy, the other one fresh and slightly sour.

When the rice is done, add butter and Parmesan, cover with a lid for 3 minutes, give a good stir and serve.

Shrimp Risotto Recipe

Cheeseandpears is back, with a huge recipes backlog. The reason for staying away for so long is simple: I’m currently working on my plan to become rich, and as Bill Cullen would say, it takes time and commitment.

Anyway, it’s time for risotto. Seriously, do you know how to make risotto yet? I hear sometimes people declaring their love for Italian food claiming they do an excellent risotto. Even if I don’t claim I do, I’m always more interested in the making rather than the final result, which can be good or bad regardless of how good you follow the process. So, if you’re reading and you do an “excellent risotto” how do you do it? Do you follow the steps below? Or do you do it your own way? By the way, I recently found out (with horror) that, when she makes risotto, my sister adds all the stock at once. So there you go, another blow to the myth that you have to be Italian to cook Italian…
I already explained the steps in my very first post about mushroom risotto but if you’re too lazy to click on it I’ll sum them up here (click it anyway, it’s a delicious risotto recipe). I’m not sure if I’ll repeat exactly the same steps in the same way, as I AM too lazy to click on my own recipe.

For two people:

• 160-200g (6-7oz) risotto rice (buy the good one, don’t be stingy!)
• 1 liter (2 pints) vegetable stock
• half onion
• 2 tablespoons olive oil or 25g (1oz) butter
• half a glass of white wine
• more butter and parmesan
• the food you want to flavor the risotto with

1. Put the chopped onion in a saucepan with the olive oil, let it sweat at medium -low heat for 7-10 minutes. Don’t burn it.
2. Pour the rice and turn up the heat, let it toast for 1-2 minutes, keep on stirring. Set a timer to 17 minutes from when you pour the rice
3. Pour the wine, turn down the heat to medium and let it evaporate.
4. Pour a ladle of stock, let it absorb before you add another one. Then pour another one and so on. Keep on stirring to prevent the rice from sticking
5. When the rice is cooked, you may need to let it go one or two minutes more to absorb any excess of stock. Take it off the heat add a knob of butter and Parmesan, cover with a lid and let it rest for 3-4 minutes. Give a good stir and serve

What about the flavor of the rice? Well there’s no fixed rule. Depending on the recipe, it can be added from the very start, half-way or towards the end. It can be cooked separately or added raw to the saucepan. And of course it can be all these things combined together. This is what you do in this particular risotto recipe, so follow me if you want to kick it up a notch.

Now, this shrimp risotto with peas goes like this.
You’ll need the ingredients above (parmesan is optional) plus 100-150g (3,5-5oz) of precooked shrimps and the same quantity of frozen peas. The quantity here is variable, firstly because I tend to forget to write them down when I cook, secondly because it depends on taste. My advice is: train your eye and go for balance: your risotto shouldn’t be swamped in peas and shrimps, but you shouldn’t struggle to find them either.

Shrimps: before starting the risotto, heat a tbsp of olive oil with a clove of garlic, stir-fry gently the shrimps and 2/3 of the defrosted peas for about 15 minutes, then add them to the risotto almost at the very end of cooking time.
The other 1/3 of the peas should be added at around the 8th minute of cooking.

In this way the peas will have two different textures and colors, one part more brownish and cooked, the other mire green and raw.
The picture of this shrimp risotto recipe is miraculously good enough to show that.

Risotto with Walnuts and Spinach

The magic of risotto recipes has happened again: taking two flavors that you know they’ll match (and walnuts, as it turns out, match with pretty much everything) and making a risotto out of them, even if you’ve never done it before.

It’s quarter end, and we’re all pretty crazy down at The Company, so this time I won’t go over the risotto routine again (sauté, toast rice, add wine etcetera), you can find it at the the post that started it all, the mushroom risotto recipe.

Risotto recipe for people:

• 3 tbsp olive oil
• ½ onion, chopped
• between 250 and 320g (9-11oz) risotto rice
• ½ glass white wine
• ½ litre (1 pint )of stock
• 200g (7oz) frozen spinach
• 100g (3 ½oz) walnuts, half roughly chopped, half finely chopped
• 30g (1oz) butter
• a handful of grated Parmesan

Thaw the spinach in boiling water, drain, squeeze and set aside.

Heat the stock.

Following the routine, add the finely chopped walnuts at stage 1 with the sauté, and the spinach at stage 3½.

When you’re finished, just before serving, stir in the rest of the walnuts.

More risotto recipes

Saffron risotto

Almost four months so far and just one risotto recipe (it was the first one: mushroom risotto. I added some tips there, so it’s worth checking out ). This can’t be good, so here I make amends with an Italian classic: risotto alla milanese, with saffron, which is kind of expensive but worth it.

Now, this is a simplified version, the original risotto recipe would also use veal bone marrow in the sauté, but here in Dublin veal is virtually impossible to find in the form of simple piece of meat, so I won’t bother looking for a bone marrow. At least use beef stock if you can.

This risotto recipe is for two people.

• 30g (1 oz) butter
• ½ onion, chopped
• 130g (4 ½ oz) risotto rice (or normal rice if you just can’t or don’t want to)
• ½ glass white wine
• A few strands of saffron
• ½ liter (1 pint) beef stock
• 30g (1 oz) parmesan

Heat the stock in a separate pan.

Melt half the butter in a pan and add the onion. Let it sweat at low heat for 7-10 minutes then add the rice.

Turn up the heat and keep on stirring for 2-3 minutes until the rice is lucid.

Now pour the wine, turn down the heat, and keep on stirring.

When the wine has gone, pour the first ladle of stock and add the saffron, which is usually grounded and melted separately, but I prefer to add it straight to the rice.

From now on there are three simple rules: keep the heat at medium level, wait for the stock to be almost completely absorbed before adding the next ladle, and never stop stirring.

After about 15-20 minutes the rice should be al dente. Timing is essential here: make sure you don’t add the last ladle of stock right before taking it off the stove as the rice should be neither too dry nor semi-liquid.

Now it’s my favourite moment: take the rice off the heat, add the rest of the butter and the parmesan, give a quick stir and cover with a lid for 2-3 minutes. Uncover, give a good final stir and serve straightaway.

This risotto recipe is from Milan, if you have the chance to be in that area, try it. I’m not that crazy about Milan, to be  honest, but you have two wonderful lakes, Lake Garda and Lake Como in the area. Italian lakes holidays in the North seem to have gained more and more popularity over the past years.

More risotto recipes

If risotto is the most Italian recipes, mushroom risotto is probably the most popular. All risotto recipes are a routine, practice these steps and there’s not much that can go wrong.

Before I go ahead, one thing which is often forgotten of risotto, is that it is naturally gluten free, so it’s totally celiac friendly.

This mushroom risotto recipe is for 4 people:

• A medium onion
• 2 cloves of garlic
• 3 + 3 tablespoons olive oil
• between 250 and 300g  rice (about ½ pound) depending on how hungry you are
• 400g (14 oz) mushrooms
• 1 liter (2 pints) vegetable stock
• ½ glass of white wine (or maybe a little bit more…)
• 50g (3 ½ tbsp) grated Parmesan cheese
• 30g (1/3 cup) butter

Prepare the mushrooms. First step of a risotto recipe routine. Put the olive oil in a frying pan with the garlic at medium heat. When it’s hot, add the mushrooms and cook for 10-15 minutes. Check the seasoning. Remove them from the heat when they’re still a bit raw.

Heat the stock. Use home made stock or a cube. I find it handy to keep it in the pan simmering beside the rice.

Stage 1: let’s sauté. Chop the onion finely and add it to the sauce pan with the olive oil. Let it cook for about 10 minutes at low heat until tender.

Stage 2: enter rice. Turn up  the heat and pour the rice. Stir until it’s lucid and has absorbed the oil. Don’t let it burn!

Interlude: white wine. Pour the wine, it will evaporate quickly.

Stage 3: stock, please! When the wine has evaporated, turn down the heat and pour some stock. One or two ladles should be enough: the rice should be moistened but not covered. Keep stirring. When most of the stock is absorbed repeat the operation.

Stage 3 ½: the main ingredient. After 10 minutes add the mushrooms. They will bring some of their cooking liquid with them, so wait for it to be absorbed before adding more stock.

Stage 4: finish cooking. After about 10 more minutes start tasting the rice, it should be almost cooked.

Stage 5: the secret chamber. Remove the pan from the heat. Add the butter and Parmesan then stir briefly and put a lid on the pan. Let it rest for 3-4 minutes.

Remove the lid, stir furiously for 30 seconds and serve the mushroom risotto immediately.

A couple of notes on:

• The word. Risotto is the name of the dish, the Italian word for rice is riso
• The kind of rice. The best kinds of risotto rice you can buy are Arborio, Carnaroli, Vialone nano. As they’re usually fairly expensive outside of Italy, parboiled rice will do.
• Starchy or not. As stirring releases the starch in the rice, there usually are two opposite views: hardly stir until you add the butter in the end, or don’t stop doing it. I prefer stirring: not only because I make sure that the rice won’t stick to the pan, but also because I can know better when it’s time for the next ladle of stock.
• Wine. Buy cheap white wine and keep it in the fridge just for cooking. If you really want to be fussy about it, pour the wine in a glass half an hour before starting to cook: it will be at room temperature when you add it and won’t slow down the cooking.
• How creamy do you want it? Between a dry risotto with almost no stock left, and one so liquid you need a spoon to eat it, there are different degrees. It should be neither this nor that. Once you’re more familiar witht the recipe you’ll know when’t it’s time to take the pan off the stove.
• And if it’s creamy enough… Eat it in a bowl, not in a dish. All the juice will gather at the bottom and you can dip the rice in it.

If you liked this mushroom risotto, there are more risotto recipes