Saturday, August 23, 2008

Risotto con fragole

So here is the recipe of 'Risotto con fragole', i.e. 'Strawberry risotto', that I showed at the roundup for the last FPOM.. sorry for having it up only now. :) Actually, I already posted about this recipe here, but I think it's better to rewrite it - and I now have a decent picture. :)

Risotto con fragole / Strawberry risotto

This is not the typical 'risotto': usually risotto is made with cheese, vegetables and/or meat - typically, for example, mushrooms, or asparagus, or some type of fish. Yet, risotto alle fragole is a quite famous dish, although not many people have tried it. It's considered somewhat 'fancy'. And in fact, it is, and if you make it, you'll taste a very different flavor than the usual risotto dishes you have had. This is a little tart, and yet creamy and savory at the same time. Hard to describe.

Ok, no more introduction. To make this, soak about 1 pound of strawberries cut into pieces in ~ 4 cups of white wine, overnight. When you're ready to make the risotto, take a pot (~10 inches diameter, 8 inches high, just to give you an idea). Add ~1 tbsp butter and sautee one onion (finely cut) in it, then add ~8 handfuls of rice, and sautee the rice with the onion. Then, add the wine where the strawberries had been soaked. The liquid should be enough to cover the rice, and about two fingers higher than the level of the rice in the pot (the fingers are measured horizontally :) ). If the strawberry-infused wine is not enough for this, add some more white wine. Add a vegetable bouillon, too. Add salt (~2 tsp) and cover the pot with a lid. Let the rice cook for about 20 minutes. Open, make sure there's still a little bit of liquid, and add the pieces of strawberries. Taste and check for the salt in the meanwhile. At this point, I also like to add some cheese that melts easily, like a very mild cheddar or some sort of fake mozzarella square cheese that they sell in the US. Cook for another 5-10 minutes, until rice is done. The rice can be served with some coarsely ground black pepper and a little bit of grated parmigiano on top. It's very good, and it's nicely colored. Guaranteed success. :)

8 comments:

Simona Carini said...

Before coming up with raspberry risotto, I made strawberry risotto a few times. I agreed with you that success is guaranteed: guests are pleasantly surprised, but always like the combination.

Amanda said...

How very clever! I would never think of a fruited risotto--it looks and sounds lovely.

JiYeon said...

Ha! I found you, Marta! lol
I've never had strawberry risotto. it sounds strangely wonderful.

The Subletter said...

Hi, I'd like to make this recipe this weekend for some guests, but I'm trying it out beforehand. When you say "Add a vegetable bouillon, too." do you mean an actual cube of bouillon, or to add some stock at this point?

The Subletter said...

Hi, I'd like to make this recipe this weekend for some guests, but I'm trying it out beforehand. When you say "Add a vegetable bouillon, too" do you mean an actual cube of bouillon, or some vegetable stock?

chemcookit said...

Hi Subletter! I did mean a cube of bouillon. If you want to use vegetable stock, you can use it in place of the water+cube of bouillon. I hope it turns out well! Let me know. :)

Thanks everybody for the really nice comments!!

The Subletter said...

So, I made it last night, and it was awesome. It was my first time making risotto, so I had my roommate help me, and he had us do it a little differently. Rather than putting a lid on it for 20 mins, we kept adding broth and boiling it down. It worked pretty well, but I'm looking forward to trying it with adding a cube of bouillon and covering it.

I'll be making it for a cook-off between friends this weekend where the goal is to use purple ingredients. What I did was I used everything you've listed above, but switched out the strawberry for equal parts (by weight) of blueberries and blackberries. The combination of the two made the dish nicely sweet and tart, as well as beautifully deep purple.

If I give you my email address in a post, could you deny it so it doesn't get published? That way you can email me, then I can reply with pictures... if you'd like.

chemcookit said...

Hi Subletter!
I'm so happy you tried it and it worked out great! Of course I'd love to see pictures and I won't publish your email - or you can just email me at the address I use for the Fresh Produce of the Month event: chemcookit AT gmail DOT com