Beets Orzotto

Posted on by foodamazers

Recipe in this post:
BEETROOT ORZOTTO with caramelised chorizo, pine kernels & lime perfumes
(serves 2 or makes a great starter for 4)

Beetroot Orzotto

(200g pearl barley; 1L broth; 2 beetroots; 1 tsp ground coriander; 30g chorizo; 2 tbsp balsamic vinegar; 1 lime zest; lemon thyme; 2 tbsp pine kernels; 1 onion; EVO oil; salt; a splash of cow/oat milk)
  1. Gently pan fry half onion slices in EVO oil till golden brown, then add the pealed and diced beetroots with the other half onion and some ground coriander. Sauté for about 10 minutes till they start to glaze.
  2. Once cooled a bit, blitz the cooked beetroots with a food processor. If they remain too thick, you can add a splash of EVO oil or a little bit of cow/oat milk to smoothen the compound.
  3. Quickly toast the pearl barley in some EVO oil for about 2 minutes. Start to cook the orzotto covering the barley with a ladle of broth at a time and keeping it on medium-high heat. Add the blitzed beetroots to the barley with more ladles of broth. Cook the barley till all the broth is absorbed, which is about 20-30 minutes in total, depending on the consistency you want to obtain.
  4. In the meantime, dice the chorizo in small cubes and sauté them in the balsamic vinegar with the pine kernels and the lemon thyme, till the vinegar is reduced and the chorizo is shimmering.
  5. Serve the orzotto mixing in the chorizo cubes balsamic reduction with the pine kernels, and garnish with leaves of lemon thyme and the lime zest.

Orzotto is a great alternative to risotto, very common in the north-east of Italy. The word itself is a blending of ‘orzo’, Italian for barley, and ‘risotto’. Do not confuse it with a pasta shape called ‘orzo’, which are a wheat pasta shaped like rice grains–in fact we call these ‘risoni’, i.e. big rice grains, in Italy.

Orzotto tends to be slightly crunchier than risotto, even though barley gives that sort of sponginess at the same time. I like to cook it al dente, but it is not uncommon to find it cooked for longer in order to get a softer feel of the grains. Because of its consistency, I like to use it in combination with different textures, such as the crunchy chorizo dices and the pine kernels in this recipe. You can make an orzotto with pretty much anything, from vegetables to fish and even meat like sausages and speck.

Asparagus and White Wine Risotto with Crispy Chorizo

Posted on by foodamazers

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Asparagus season is always so exciting! I was not impressed by asparagus as a child. Back home we had only pickled white asparagus. The colour of it was a little bit off putting. My mum was very curious but we gave up very quickly, as none of us liked it. However I was still determined to try it fresh when I moved to London. And I can honestly say that I just love the fresh green asparagus! So no surprises I have been gorging on it for about 3 weeks now… Some shops sell the thin variety which is super easy to prepare and tastes lovely.

My favourite way of having asparagus is in a risotto. I love how well it goes with the rice and peas. A little bit of chilli sauce is excellent to enhance the flavours. I have decided to add some of the goat’s cheese just towards the end of cooking. The crumbled pieces melted beautifully into the risotto and add some delicious nutty flavour.

I also like to add a bit of meat just to bring a bit of saltiness and a crisp finish. Sliced chorizo is delicious when fried on a hot pan. In this way each slice crisps up and some of the fat melts away. If you prefer you can also fry a few prawns or just keep the risotto as vegetarian option.

Asparagus and White Wine Risotto with Crispy Chorizo

200g asparagus
80 g frozen peas
1 cup rice
3 cloves of garlic
olive oil
80 ml white wine
400 ml vegetable or chicken stock
70 g goat’s cheese
50 g sliced chorizo

Chop the garlic into small pieces or if you have a garlic press put through to create a paste. Fry garlic with olive oil on ow heat until it become darker in colour. Add white wine and leave to simmer until wine and oil incorporate together. Wine is cooked off once all the oily spots disappear and the mixture has one consisted colour. Add the rice and fry further until all liquid is soaked up. Keep on the heat for a bit longer to fry the rice. Add part of a chicken stock and leave to simmer. After 5 minutes add asparagus and frozen peas. Keep pouring the stock as required to keep the rice covered. Keep stirring until mixture starts to thicken.

Once rice is cooked, add broken cheese pieces and chilli sauce. Mix well to allow cheese to melt. Fry chorizo slices in a separate pan until crispy. Plate up risotto and decorate with fried chorizo slices.

by Maria

Courgette pesto risotto with almond flakes and pine kernels

Posted on by foodamazers

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Risotto is a vital part of my food. It says heritage and cooking experience to me. The options are always many, the last one was a fresh discovery. This risotto is cooked in courgette pesto and its flavour makes it a light, green-tasting new tint for me. The courgettes are prepared raw with cheese and some nuts, and then cooked with the rice. It takes little time to prepare and it is worth it.

Italian food has honoured courgette for centuries, literally. Arriving in Europe with the ingredients from the ‘New World’, courgettes were at the beginning confused for the European pumpkin, which was already widely diffused. Already in the seventeenth century, Italian courgettes from Modena were renowned for their versatility in the kitchen and for apothecaries uses.

Courgettes are the kind of vegetables that you go and get from the garden at home, and that is why they are prepared in so many ways, from vernacular roots to a posh finish, across Italy’s many local traditions. This version is geographical catch, because risotto is typically cooked in Piedmont, Lombardy, and Veneto, pesto comes from Liguria, and green courgettes are equally diffused north and south of the Boot.

Courgette pesto risotto (serves 4)

400 g rice Carnaroli–ideally, otherwise Arborio
1 l vegetable broth
1 glass of white wine
1 shallot
200 g courgette
20 g basil
1 clove of garlic
20 g pine kernels
10 g almond flakes
50 g goat cheese
oil

Start with washing the courgettes, cut extremities off, and shave each one at a time through a grater. Add a pinch of salt and let them drain some liquid.

Wash the basil leaves and blend with pine kernels, almonds, the cleaned garlic clove, and a tablespoon of oil–keep a few nuts for the serving decoration. Add the courgettes and another bit of oil. Your pesto has to look and feel soft and even.

Warm the oil in the pan, add chopped shallot till golden, and then raise the fire to toast the rice. After the first few minutes, the rice starts to lightly toast and smell very ‘cerealy’: add now the wine and let it reduce. Lower the fire and let cook for about 18 minutes adding the broth from time to time. Add your courgette pesto at the end with the very last bit of broth. Instead of creaming with butter, add the goat cheese and mix.

Serve with a sprinkle of the remaining pine kernels and almond flakes.

by Max

Risotto with porcini mushrooms and Castelmagno cheese

Posted on by foodamazers

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Cooking a nice risotto is one of the simplest actions in the world. It needs practice, of course, as anything else in the kitchen. But all it takes is a combination of basic ingredients and a few passages. You start with an onion soffritto, you quickly toast the rice, splash it with wine to be steamed off on high fire, stir in the broth, add your other ingredients (porcini and cheese, here), and repeat broth stirring till the job is done. Take it off the fire when cooked, add a cube of butter, and mix gently. In this foodamazers’ version, Max has decorated our risotto with two porcini crisps which were panfried in butter. We accompanied it with one glass of Verdicchio di Matelica (DOC)–perhaps two.

Today, we had the luxury of two amazing Italian ingredients for our risotto: porcini mushrooms from Borgotaro (PGI) and Castelmagno cheese (PDO). Borgotaro is a village of seven thousand souls in Emilia, famous for its porcini and chestnuts, and is one of the Parmigiano Reggiano production centres. Castelmagno sits on top of the mountains west of Cuneo, in Piedmont, and counts less than one hundred inhabitants. The people from these villages are used to great, natural flavours, and the richness of the ingredients we used today reflects the authenticity of those lands, made of smells, colours, and taste.

Risotto with Borgotaro porcini mushrooms and Castelmagno cheese (serves 4)

360 g Carnaroli or Arborio rice
400 g (fresh) or 50 g (dried) porcini mushrooms
70 g Castelmagno cheese (20 g for cooking, 50 g for grating)
20 g butter
1 l broth
1 glass of wine (for cooking, possibly white)
2 tbsp oil
1 onion/shallot
1 pinch of salt

Sauté the onion/shallot in a pan where you have heated up the oil. When the onion turns lightly golden, add the rice and raise the heat to toast it uniformly.

After a couple of minutes, add the wine, which will evaporate in about one minute, and sprinkle the pinch of salt. When the wine is drying out, lower the heat to medium and stir in a couple of broth ladles to cover the rice.

Let the rice simmer in broth and slowly replenish the pan during cooking. Ten minutes before the end, add the mushrooms and a few minutes later add small cubes of Castelmagno (about 20 g).

When the rice is cooked, the broth should have evaporated, leaving a creamy coating to the grains. Remove the pan from heat, add the butter (at room temperature), and gently mix together. Dish the rice onto flat plates or pasta bowls, as you prefer, and finish with grated Castelmagno.

Buon appetito!

by Max