After a long day of hard work, picking up my child at the day nursery, I really don’t always feel like doing groceries… Risotto is an ideal store cupboard dish and once you have mastered the technique you can adapt the recipe by making this delicious meal with all kind of different ingredients. So from now on, make sure you always have some risotto rice in the kitchen!
And because I also have a few other ingredients that are always in store in my kitchen, like chili pepper, ginger, saffron and cilantro (when I buy it, I clean it and store it in the freezer. Then every time I need some, I can take it out). I also find a tin of extra fine green flageolets beans very useful! So yeah, no need to go to the supermarket and ready to start cooking!
Ingredients (4 persons):
- 400 grams of Arborio or Carnaroli rice (100 grams a person)
- Olive oil
- 1 or 2 pieces of fresh, pressed garlic
- Handful cilantro
- 1 onion in small pieces
- 1 small dried chili pepper (crunch it into smaller pieces)
- A thumb of fresh ginger into small pieces
- About 5 saffron threads (soaked in water for an hour)
- About 1/1,5 liter stock
- One glass of white wine
- A tin of flageolets beans or peas (maybe you have some frozen peas? An ideal vegetable!)
- Salt & Pepper
- If preferred / available some Parmesan cheese
Add the oil to a saucepan and cook the onion and ginger 5 minutes, until they star getting a little bit brown. In a separate pan heat the stock, simmering gently. Add the garlic and chili pepper to the onion and ginger, stir 1 minute then add the rice. Stir 2 minutes, then add a glass of white wine. Let it cook for a few minutes and then add two ladles stock together with the soaked saffron, enough to just cover the rice and stir again. Regularly stirring the rice, add hot stock a little at a time so the rice is just covered. The risotto should be very gently bubbling. After about 15 minutes, add the flageolets (or peas), stir another 5 minutes, testing the rice to make sure its cooked ‘al dente’ (slightly firm) and adding any remaining stock. Finish it with adding some cilantro, salt, pepper and parmesan cheese (if preferred), stir and serve... Enjoy!
