Easy Dinner: Risotto

Often when I come home I am in a rush to get dinner prepped, help The Kid with his homework, and save the world from a fate worse than total destruction, not necessarily in that order. Sometimes, believe it or not, I just don't want to cook. Going out can be so much easier but the result is never as satisfying as a home cooked meal, no matter how simple.

Sometimes we just make tacos or some other simple dish that uses up leftovers and scraps.


Other times I like to make things that require only one pan or dish. It makes for easy prep, cooking, and clean up. The latter being the most important, especially when you don't own a dishwasher. One of my favorite one dish meals is risotto. The flavor possibilities are virtually endless. I like to load mine up with a variety of vegetables so when it is served with a good salad and a simple protein (or not) it makes a healthy and balanced meal.

Risotto is a rice dish of Italian origin. Like many ethnic recipes it has changed and adapted over the years to the various styles of chefs around the world. There are some technical considerations that remain constant, though. First, you need some kind of hot stock or liquid. The liquid is added to the rice in increments. It is important that it be hot so as not to momentarily stop the cooking process. (I once worked with a chef who added all of the hot liquid at once and achieved great results. I have even done this myself a time or two. For the recipe presented here we will stick with tradition as that is what you are more likely to encounter in other recipes for risotto.) Second, the rice needs to be lightly sautéed so that it will easily begin accepting the hot liquid.

As for flavorings I like to start with EVOO, onion, and/or garlic. Beyond that I will use just about anything: herbs, vegetables, spices, meats, cheese. I have even made a dessert risotto with cream that was served with pears poached in riesling wine. Once you have the basic technique down you'll see how you can do just about anything with risotto.

One last thing. You need a certain kind of rice to make this dish. There are two common choices: Arborio and Carnaroli. Both are a type of rice from the respective regions in Italy. Arborio rice is a short grain with a high starch content. Carnaroli rice is a medium grain with a higher starch content. I tend to use Carnaroli rice as it keeps its texture a little better during the long cooking process. But either one will work so use what you can find. Uncle Ben's won't work, so don't even think about it.

Let's cook. First we will tackle the liquid. Use stock. Any kind of stock will work but I like to use a lighter stock. Vegetable stock is usually my choice. For those of you who know about my distrust of the meat industry you will be able to guess that I don't like to buy meat stocks unless deemed absolutely necessary. The other thing about vegetable stock is that if you have three simple ingredients laying around (most of you have even more) then you can make a vegetable stock with more flavor than anything you can buy on the shelf. It will not take much more than a minute to prep, either. So open your refrigerator and get out a couple of stalks of that celery that is wilting and limp, a large carrot, and an onion. Chop them up (don't even peel the carrot or the onion) and toss them in a stock pot. Fill the pot with water, toss in some bay leaves or whatever fresh herb stems you have on hand. If you have any pepper corns then toss a palm full of those in, too. For what it's worth, in my stock pictured here I used the peels from the carrots and onion in the recipe. That red onion you see was a scrap in the refrigerator.

Turn on the heat, bring it to a boil, and then reduce the heat so that it just barely bubbles but stays hot.

Now let's get our ingredients out and ready for prep. I'm using garlic, onion, carrots, shelled peas, basil, white wine, and Parmigiano-Reggiano cheese. (I bought the peas already shelled and I cooked them for an earlier recipe of risotto. While the peas were cooking I kept stealing some of the cooking liquid and used that for my risotto liquid in lieu of fresh vegetable stock.)


Dice the carrots into a 1/4 inch dice. Mince the onion and garlic.


Pour a little EVOO into a wide pan and set it over medium heat. Let the oil get hot and then gently sauté the onion and garlic until they are fragrant and translucent. Don't let them brown. Stir, stir, stir.


Add the rice and gently sauté it until it is slightly translucent. Stir, stir, stir.


Add about 1/2 cup of white wine. Stir, stir, stir. Cook the rice until all of the wine has been absorbed.

When all of the wine has been absorbed add a scant cup of the stock directly from the stock pot. Just hold a ladle or measuring cup against the side of the stock pot to keep the vegetable chunks from getting into the cup (if you will cut your vegetables in large chunks this will help). Add the stock to the rice. Stir, stir, stir. When all of the stock has been absorbed add another scant cup. Stir, stir, stir. Lather, rinse, repeat. All in all you will probably need about 6 - 8 cups of liquid for 1 cup of rice. I like to make about 10 - 15 cups of stock at a time. Whatever is left over I will save for another use. It's always good to have on hand.

Now comes the tricky part. It's actually not so much tricky as it just requires a good sense of timing. Carrots are hard. We would like them to be soft but with a slight bite to the tooth. In Italy they call this "al dente". We would like for our rice to be the same: cooked but not mushy. At about cup number 4 I put the carrots in with the liquid.

Stir, stir, stir. Continue adding liquid as before.

Taste the rice every now and again. When you can bite into a grain and feel just the slightest crunch in the center then you are probably about 1 cup of liquid away from being done. Add the last cup of liquid and the shelled peas.

Stir, stir, stir.

By now the rice should be done. Chop your basil now. If you chopped it earlier when you did your carrots then it will have turned black by now. Too bad for you. Get some more and chop it fresh. Chop it small. I did a basil chiffonade. If you have mad knife skills like me then you can do this, too. If not, then just chop it as small as you can. I was fortunate enough to have a sous chef on this day to help stir, stir, stir and add the basil.


Grate some Parmigiano-Regianno cheese and stir it in.

Stir, stir, stir one last time before you season to taste with salt and serve, serve, serve.


It really doesn't take long to prep. The total cooking time is about 40 minutes. All the stirring can be done intermittently but needs to be somewhat consistent just so the risotto doesn't stick and burn. That would be bad. If you have any left over then just store it in a container in the fridge. I like to eat it cold but it drives The Missus crazy when I do that. Either way it tastes great and is easy to make. Clean up is a snap, too. Yum.

Risotto with Shelled Peas, Carrots, and Basil

2-3 Tbsp. EVOO
1 cup Arborio or Carnaroli Rice
2 Garlic Cloves, peeled and minced
1/2 Onion, peeled and minced
2 medium Carrots, peeled and cut into 1/4 inch dice
1 cup Shelled Fresh Peas, cooked
1/4 cup Basil Leaves, chopped small or chiffonade
1/2 cup Dry White Wine, such as Sauvignon Blanc
6 - 10 cups Hot Vegetable Stock
1/2 cup Parmigiano-Reggiano Cheese, freshly grated
Salt to taste

In a wide, shallow pan set over medium heat add the EVOO and let it get hot. Add the minced onions and garlic. Sauté them until they are fragrant and translucent. Add the rice and sauté it until it is slightly translucent.

Add the wine and cook, stirring constantly, until it has been fully absorbed by the rice. Begin adding the hot stock 1 cup at a time, stirring frequently, until each cup has been fully absorbed by the rice before adding the next cup. You will notice that the rice is becoming thick and fairly creamy. Keep stirring so that it doesn't stick and burn.

After about 4 cups of hot stock have been added toss in the diced carrots. Continue to add hot stock as directed above. Keep stirring. The carrots will begin to soften slightly. When the rice is done (it should have a slight bite but not be crunchy at all; nor should it be mushy) add the peas, basil, and grated cheese. Season to taste with salt and serve immediately.

Field to Table VII: Venison Bolognese with Saffron

It's almost deer season again. My larders are running low as I am almost out of my kills from last year. As the weather has begun to get cooler, the days shorter, I begin making recipes that have long cooking times and deep flavor. I want comfort food. I want slow food.

I have, in the past, had the pleasure of working with Giuliano Hazan. He is the son of Marcella Hazan. He knows his Italian food. At one class we were working together we had a brief discussion about Bolognese sauce. This is the famous pasta sauce from Emilia-Romagna, where Bologna is the capital. Regional dishes that have acquired world renown often have many different variations (like chili in Texas) and almost everyone has their own way of making it. Bolognese is no exception. Giuliano talked about his version and I talked about mine. They were remarkably similar. The difference was that, while his used the standard mirepoix (carrot, celery, and onion), mine added minced garlic and herbs.

For this recipe I wanted to try something a little different. Because I was using venison I wanted to use something that complimented the slight gaminess of the meat. I thought that saffron might be a nice addition with its deep, floral earthiness. I had a little saffron on hand so methinks, "WTF?" I mean, really, how bad could it be?

If you don't have venison on hand then ground chuck will work just fine, with or without the saffron. If you use chuck you will want to drain the fat after you brown the meat. Play around with the herbs and spices but understand the you should use them sparingly. Also understand the nutmeg is common and essential. Don't substitute the butter and milk for anything low-fat, either. There isn't a whole lot of either one and both play an important role in adding body to the sauce and helping to break down the meat.

First things first. Mis en place ou mourir dans la merde. This is French term, when loosely translated means, "Do your prep or die in the shit." (One of my chef buddies actually has this tattooed on his arm.) Mis en place is an actual culinary term. Literally translated it means "to put in place". Chefs refer to their prep work as mis en place, or simply, mise. The term is used in the movie Ratatouille. But I digress. Let's prep. It's really very simple. Put your meat in a bowl and mince your vegetables (mirepoix + garlic).

See? Easy peasy.

Now put your minced veggies into a deep pan or stock pot with the EVOO and butter. Turn on the heat to medium and cook the veggies until they are slightly soft. Don't rush. You'll be here all day making this sauce and getting your house to smell erotically saucy. Take your time.

While the veggies are slowly cooking get your spices together, if you are going to use them.I'm using chopped fresh thyme, dried oregano, and saffron. You may be asking yourself why I used fresh thyme and dried oregano. The answer is simple: because that's what I had. If I had any oregano growing outside I would have picked it and used it fresh. Don't forget to stir the veggies now and again. You don't want them to burn. Burned food tastes bad.

When the veggies are beginning to show slight signs of browning then you may add the meat and brown it. Don't adjust the heat to a higher level. Let it take it's time. Stir it now and again so that the clumps of meat break apart. Pour a glass of wine and don't worry that you are drinking at 10:00 a.m. If you are worried that someone will scold you for drinking wine so early in the morning then just pour it into a coffee mug. Slow food has it's rewards.


When the meat is properly browned it should look like this:

At this point you will add a cup of dry white wine. I like to use a soave or pinot grigio. Stay far, far away from chardonnay. Chardonnay = bad, bad, bad. Why? Because I feel that the nuances of oak, vanilla, butter, and pear that are present (sometimes in sledgehammer proportions) in chardonnay really interfere with, rather than integrate, ingredients in most recipes.

Cook the wine (don't forget to give a stir every once in a while) until it has almost evaporated. Then add the milk and spices, cooking and stirring until the milk has almost evaporated. (Though you can't see it in the picture there is a little freshly grated nutmeg underneath that pile of goodness.)

It's time for the tomatoes. Don't use fresh tomatoes unless you can find them at the peak of their flavor in the summer. This means that you have about a 2 or 3 month window to make this sauce in the summertime. During the rest of the year fresh tomatoes are going to taste like shoes. Use canned whole tomatoes. I bought 2 large cans of San Marzano tomatoes (any brand will work, though). Open the cans and, using a pair of kitchen shears, roughly chop the tomatoes in the can. Conversely, you can put the tomatoes, juice and all, into a food processor and pulse them a few times. Just remember that it is a rough chop. Let the long, slow cooking process break the pieces down. Add the tomatoes to the meat and spices. (Those two whitish things in the pot are Parmigiano-Reggiano cheese rinds. Extra flavor.) Now we get to use my favorite culinary term of all time: cook the shit out of it.

When the sauce starts to bubble turn the heat down to the lowest setting so that the sauce just barely simmers. The sauce will need to be stirred occasionally. You don't want it to stick and burn. I cooked mine for about 3 1/2 to 4 hours. Like I said, take your time. Plan to be at home all day when you make this sauce. The slow cooking time really does let the flavor develop into something so deep that you will suddenly start speaking as if your last name were Soprano or Corleone. Or you may do this. The finished sauce should look like this:

Season to taste with salt. Stir it until you find the cheese rinds and discard them. You have spent a long time making this sauce. You should know that it freezes well so don't be afraid to put half of it in the freezer for another time. When you serve it you want to toss the pasta with the sauce. Use only enough sauce so that the pasta is just coated and the meat is evenly distributed. Don't drown your pasta with the sauce. Top the bowl of pasta with a grating of fresh Parmigiano-Reggiano. Don't forget the vino. A sturdy sangiovese, bonarda, or barbera would be a good match. I also think that a negroamaro or cannonau would be good, too. But really, drink what you like. It will be fine. Oh, one more thing: this sauce tastes better the next day; just something to think about. Yum.

Venison Bolognese with Saffron

1 Yellow Onion, peeled and minced
2 Carrots, peeled and minced
2 Celery Ribs, minced
3 Garlic Cloves, minced
6 Tbsp. Butter
4 Tbsp. EVOO
2 # Ground Venison (or ground beef chuck)
2 cups Dry White Wine
1 cup Whole Milk
2 tsp. Fresh Thyme, chopped
2 tsp. Fresh Oregano, chopped
1/2 gram Saffron Threads
1/4 tsp. Nutmeg, freshly grated
2 large cans Whole Peeled Tomatoes, roughly chopped

Put the EVOO, butter, and minced vegetables in a large, deep pot or stock pot and turn the heat to medium. Allow the vegetables to cook until they are just beginning to brown.

Add the meat and break it apart with a wooden spoon. Allow the meat to brown.

Add the wine and cook it, stirring occasionally, until it has mostly evaporated. Add the milk and spices and cook the mixture, stirring occasionally, until the milk has mostly evaporated.

Using kitchen shears inserted directly into the can, roughly chop the tomatoes. You can also pulse them, juice and all, in a food processor until they are just chopped but still fairly chunky. Add the tomatoes to the pot and let them begin to bubble. When the sauce begins to bubble reduce the heat to low so that it just barely simmers. Cook the sauce until most of the liquid has evaporated, about 3 or 4 hours. When the sauce is thick season it to taste with salt. Freeze half of the sauce (or more) and serve the rest tossed with freshly boiled pasta (spaghetti, linguine, or some shape, like orrechiete, that catches the sauce) and topped with freshly grated Parmigiano-Reggiano cheese.