I love eating rice and would cook and eat rice nearly everyday. Risotto is a classic Italian cuisine, well accepted by people with different cultural backgrounds around the world. Not to mention, I love its rich and creamy texture going extremely well with a variety of vegetables or meats. The traditional way of cooking risotto is to add stock into the grains gradually and stir constantly. Generally speaking, the whole process of cooking the grains from raw to being cooked with constant stirring requires me standing near the stove at least 25 to 30 minutes or so. I happily invest all the efforts and time in cooking this fantastic cuisine as “labour of love” for my family and the end results prove the labour is well worth. But there are often times, when I am tired, or have some urgent or important things interrupted or for any other reasons, yet I still want a bowl of creamy risotto, I might go for a short cut in cooking. I found a cheating way to cook risotto with similar outcome that I want. The trick is simple, just use a steamer or a wok to replace the constant stirring near the hot stove and skip the hardest part of making this dish. But I have to insert a disclaimer here. The cheating way of my approach and cooking time taken in the following recipe is to produce the well cooked rice in order to suit our Asian rice-eating buds. As for those people who love a bit chewy inside, you have to adjust the cooking time and quantity of stock. Do one or two experiments yourself to find the optimal way to suit your taste if you want to cheat in cooking risotto. Follow my first cooking hack, A Quick Way to Make Crème Brulee Without an Oven, this is my second one posted on this website. Hope you all like it and enjoy. Serves 3 to 4 (Adapted from Australian Good Food, May 2010 edition) Ingredients:
600g (21oz) butternut pumpkin, peeled, deseeded and diced 1 onion, finely chopped 1 stalk celery, finely chopped 2 cloves garlic, crushed 1 bay leaf 1 tsp thyme leaves 150g (5oz) Arborio rice, about 3/4cup 70ml dry white wine 550ml salt-reduced vegetable stock 35g (1.5oz) parmesan cheese, grated 2 tbsp olive oil
Method: I have passions of cooking all kinds of good foods and different cuisines for my family. Check out my food blog, Christine’s Recipes for all the dishes I have cooked, with full recipes and step-by-step instructions and photos.
