Prawn, Leek & Lemon Risotto

I've been remiss with my blogging over the last few months - definitely not posting as regularly as I would like to, and it's been ages since I've posted anything over at I Heart Cooking Clubs.  I miss my friends and, since it's pot luck week this week, I thought I'd join in with a quick and easy Donna Hay dish that's become a bit of a favourite of mine.

Now let me preface this by saying that I've always been very firmly been of the view that a baked risotto will never be as good as a traditionally prepared version, a view that appeared to be supported by others I know who have given it a try.  I was pretty sure that as long as my backside pointed to the ground (as they say), I was never going to venture into baked risotto territory.

Well, one should never say "never".  I'd had Donna's recipe for this Prawn, Leek and Lemon Risotto bookmarked in my copy of "Fast, Fresh, Simple" for ages because I think this is such a winning flavour combination.  Donna's version is however a baked one, and I was pretty sure that I would just take those ingredients and use them in my usual stirred method for making risotto.

A couple of weeks ago though, I was really hankering for some risotto on a cold and miserable winter week night, but I had other things I needed to be doing and just didn't have the time to spare standing over a pot for 20 to 30 minutes.  So, I took a deep breath, threw caution to the wind, and made my first baked risotto.  I fully expected that without all that constant stirring my risotto wouldn't have the creaminess I was used to from my usual version, but I was surprised to find it was plenty creamy - I think a good knob of butter up front, and another one to finish with, probably helped with that, and I have the feeling that using my enamelled cast iron casserole dish also helped.

So final verdict - no deficit on the "creaminess" front, and the resulting risotto was just about as good as a stirred version.   In my mind, however, a large part of the joy of risotto comes from the sheer pleasure of standing and stirring that pot for up to half an hour - it's a great exercise in presence and mindfulness, and that matters to me a great deal, and I have the belief that it is this which translates into superior flavour rather than just the physical alchemy of stirring those starchy grains of rice around for 20 minutes.  So, yes, I think a stirred risotto will always be superior - you will taste the love that's been stirred into it in every mouthful - but for a quick mid-week fix when you have other things to get done this is a great alternative, and I loved it so much that I've made it several times since.  I hope you'll give it a try.

Prawn, Leek & Lemon Risotto Recipe
Adapted slightly from recipe by Donna Hay
from Fast, Fresh, Simple
Serves 2
Click here for a printable copy of this recipe

1 tablespoon olive oil
couple of generous knobs of butter
1/2 a leek thinly sliced
2x cloves garlic, crushed
1x lemon, zest and juice
1 cup arborio rice
2-1/2 cups vegetable stock
200g raw prawns, peeled and cleaned
large handful of flat leaf parsley leaves, roughly chopped
flaky sea salt & freshly ground black pepper

Preheat oven to 200 degrees C (400 degrees F).

Put olive oil and one generous knob of butter in an ovenproof dish, which has a tight fitting lid.  Set dish over medium heat, and once the butter has melted add the leek, garlic and lemon zest to the pan.  Cook for several minutes until the leek has softened, but not browned.  Add the rice to the pan and stir constantly for a couple of minutes until all the rice is completely coated with the oil and the grains look slightly translucent around the edges.  Add half the lemon juice to the pan, and stir constantly until all the liquid has been absorbed.  Now add all the stock to the pan, remove from the heat and cover tightly.

Place pan in the preheated oven and cook for 25 minutes.  Remove from the oven, and set the pan over medium heat again.  If all the liquid has already been absorbed, add a ladleful of hot water to the pan along with the prawns.  Stir constantly until the prawns are cooked through - about 4 or 5 minutes.

Remove from the heat, stir in the other generous knob of butter, the remaining lemon juice, parsley, salt and pepper.  Cover and allow to stand for five minutes for all the flavours to infuse, and then serve immediately.

If you would like to get to know Donna Hay a little better, and to see all the wonderful fast and fabulous dishes my friends have come up with, then do go visit I Heart Cooking Clubs and check out the links.

Because it's been a while since I've visited some of my other friends, I'll also be sharing this post this week at Weekend Cooking hosted by Beth at Beth Fish Reads, and at Foodie Fridays hosted by Designs by Gollam.

    

Saffron Roasted Tomatoes with Labneh and Triple Tomato Quinoa Risotto with Black Olives & Feta

For the first time since I started this blog, some five and a half years ago, I'm experiencing some serious writer's block.  I've been trying to write this post for the last week, and every time I sit down at the desk to write I allow myself to be distracted by just about anything else - that great "crack house" that is Pinterest (who of us can't get lost in that for hours), a little bit of filing (even though filing is my least favourite thing to do), a couple of scraps of paper, a magazine, I've even developed an uncommon interest in the tiniest speck of dust.  Pretty much anything to distract me from the admission that perhaps I have nothing to say!

Right now it's a glorious Sunday morning, the sun is shining, the birds are singing, the cicadas are chirping, and it is taking every shred of willpower I possess to resist the siren call of the sea and sand.  But I've vowed not to hit the beach until this post is done, so perhaps I better get on with it.

I fully intended to bring you these glorious saffron-roasted tomatoes last week, when my friends and I at I Heart Cook Clubs were exploring the theme Along the Spice Trail with our current chef, Diana Henry.  For reasons already disclosed, that just didn't happen.  Which is sad, because withholding these from you is nothing short of a travesty. On a positive note though, this is Pot Luck week at IHCC, so I still get to share this plate of deliciousness with you.  When I brought you these Maple Roasted Tomatoes, way back when my blog was in its infancy, I thought I was really onto something, and I've been making them that way ever since.  Taking inspiration however from Diana's book A Change of Appetite, and adding harissa and saffron into the mix elevates these tomatoes to something positively sublime.  The kick of heat from the harissa, and the earthiness of the saffron, lend perfect balance to the sweet tomatoes, and some cooling tang from garlicky, herby labneh on top is the perfect accompaniment.

I didn't depart too much from Diana's recipe, though I pretty much ignored quantities and just used what suited me. This is the kind of dish where you really don't need to adhere to things too closely, which is something I always like in a recipe.  You need to begin by making your labneh ... Set a sieve over a bowl and line it with a paper towel or piece of clean muslin.  Add a few good dollops of natural yoghurt to the sieve, and place in the fridge for several hours until all the liquid has drained away, and you are left with something the consistency of thick cream cheese.  I use lovely thick Greek yoghurt that really only takes a couple of hours, but depending on the yoghurt you start with it may take up to 24 hours.  Once yoghurt has reached it's desired consistency, remove from sieve to a small bowl and mix in a clove of crushed garlic, some chopped herbs of your liking, and season with salt and pepper.  Now onto the tomatoes ... Choose several of your favourite tomatoes - I used a variety of tomatoes picked straight from the garden.  Cut them in half and lay them in a single layer in an ovenproof dish.  In a small bowl mix together a generous slosh or two of olive oil, two or three tablespoons of harissa, and a good pinch of saffron threads.  Pour the mixture over the tomatoes, and turn them to make sure they are well coated all over.  Set the tomatoes cut side up, drizzle liberally with maple syrup, and season generously.  Roast them in a preheated oven, 190 degrees C (375 degrees F) for around 45 minutes, remove from oven, and leave to cool slightly.  Arrange the roasted tomatoes on a platter and top with good dollops of the labneh.  Drizzle with any of the cooking juices, and strew a few toasted almonds and coriander leaves over the top to finish.

These are sensational served warm or at room temperature.  I tossed some of them with a few peppery rocket leaves and served them with this harissa marinated fish.

As is frequently the case in my house, however, I did end up with quite a lot of leftovers, which I decided to turn into risotto.  Since I'm on a bit of a "health-kick" at the moment, I experimented with using quinoa for my risotto instead of the traditional arborio rice, and I have to say I was pretty pleased with the results.  The quinoa had a really pleasant nutty flavour and slight chew to it, but the best thing of all was that I wasn't left with that heavy, weighed down kind of feeling afterwards.  This delivered all the comforting satisfaction that you expect from a risotto, with none of the "heft".  I love bringing layers of flavour and texture to a dish, and I achieved that here by using tomatoes three ways - the leftover saffron roasted tomatoes, a few sun-dried tomatoes, and finished off with a few fresh tomatoes.  The other great thing I discovered about using the quinoa in this risotto, is that it reheated really well the next day, which cannot generally be said for a risotto made with arborio rice.  Making risotto with quinoa is definitely set to become a regular feature in my kitchen now, and I can't wait to experiment with a few different flavours.  In the meantime, I hope you'll give this one a try.

On that note, I'm off to the beach now.  Enjoy what's left of your weekend xo

Triple Tomato Quinoa Risotto with Black Olives & Feta Recipe
a Couscous & Consciousness original

olive oil

1 clove garlic, finely chopped

1/2 small leek, finely sliced

1 cup quinoa

juice of 1/2 lemon

2 to 3 cups of vegetable stock, hot

3x saffron-roasted tomatoes (= 6x halves), roughly chopped (see above)

3 or 4 sun-dried tomatoes, roughly chopped

half a dozen fresh cherry tomatoes, halved

generous handful of black olives

chunks of crumbled goat feta - as much or as little as you like

flaky sea salt & freshly ground black pepper

fresh basil leaves, roughly torn, to finish

Heat a good slosh of olive oil in a heavy based pan over medium heat.  Add the leek and garlic to the pan - cooking until they just begin to soften - take care not to burn the garlic.  Almost as soon as you can smell the garlic it is time to add the quinoa to the pan.  Continue cooking the quinoa with the leek and garlic, stirring constantly, until every single grain is coated with the oil and it begins to appear a little "toasted".

Now is the time to add the lemon juice, and continue stirring until virtually all the liquid has been absorbed by the quinoa.  Then reduce the heat a little, and begin to add the stock, one ladleful at a time - stirring constantly until each ladleful has been absorbed before adding the next.

Keep stirring and adding stock until the quinoa has plumped up and is tender (but not mushy) to the bite - this will probably take around 20 minutes.  Round about the 10 minute mark, stir in the chopped roasted tomatoes and sun-dried tomatoes.

Once the quinoa is cooked, remove from the heat, stir in the fresh tomatoes, olives, feta and basil.  Taste, then season to your liking with flaky sea salt and freshly ground pepper.  Stir to combine, then cover and leave to rest for 5 minutes to enable all the flavours to infuse.

Serve immediately, with some extra fresh basil on top.

If you would like to get to know Diana Henry a little better, and to see what everyone else has cooked up this week, then do go and visit my friends at I Heart Cooking Clubs and check out the links (who knows, you might even want to join the journey and cook along with us) ...

... or check out A Change of Appetite and Diana's many other great titles available from Amazon USA, Amazon UK, or Fishpond NZ.

Artichoke & Italian Sausage Risotto

You may recall that last week I brought you coffee, when I had really been planning to bring you risotto.  Since then, I was flooded with comments from so many of you saying that you still wanted to see the risotto, and as our theme for this week at I Heart Cooking Clubs is Rice is Nice this seemed like the perfect time to share this dish.

This is another recipe from Tessa Kiros' book Falling Cloudberries, though to be honest I used her recipe more as inspiration than following it too closely.  Risotto is one of those things that I make so often that I can pretty much make it with my eyes closed.  I have my own tried and true "method" for making risotto and seldom use a recipe other than for inspiration.  So it was with this recipe - I took Tessa's idea for artichokes and Italian sausages, but departing somewhat from her method I incorporated them into my usual risotto base.  I found a great Italian sausage with plenty of fennel and little hits of chilli which brought loads of flavour to the risotto, and I used bottled char-grilled artichokes instead of the fresh artichokes Tessa used.  There are no fresh artichokes available here right now - in fact, even in the season here, they are both hard to come by and ridiculously expensive - and I have never come across frozen ones here in New Zealand either.  Bottled ones work just fine, however, and I simply put them in right at the end so that they wouldn't break up too much.

I have always loved the combination of sausage with pasta or rice, and the spiciness of these sausages with the smoky char-grilled artichokes, combined with creaminess of the rice amounted to the ultimate in comfort food.  Kim at Stirring the Pot made this last week and said it was one of her favourite Tessa Kiros recipes so far, and I would have to agree - this was definitely one of my favourites.  I urge you to try it.

Artichoke & Italian Sausage Risotto

Inspired by a recipe by Tessa Kiros from

Falling Cloudberries

Makes 3 generous servings

Click here for a printable copy of this recipe

4x char-grilled bottled artichokes, drained & cut into quarters
3x medium sized Italian sausages

olive oil

1 shallot, finely chopped

2 garlic cloves, minced
small bunch of thyme

4 generous handfuls arborio rice

1/2 cup white wine or juice of 1 lemon

3 to 4 cups vegetable stock, hot
pinch of saffron threads, infused in the hot stock

2 tablespoons butter

3/4 cup Parmesan, freshly grated

flaky sea salt & freshly ground black pepper

Remove the casings from the sausages - just run a sharp knife down the full length of the sausage, peel off the casing and discard - it will come off very easily.  Heat a tablespoon or two of olive oil in a large skillet, set over high heat.  Add the sausages to the hot oil and using a wooden spatula break the sausages up into smallish pieces.  Cook, stirring from time to time, until the pieces of sausage are cooked through and lightly golden all over.  Remove from the pan and set aside on some paper towels to drain any excess fat.

Return the pan to the heat.  With fat that has come out of the sausages, you shouldn't need any more oil in the pan, but by all means add more if necessary - you should have about 2-3 tablespoons of oil.  Add the shallot, garlic and thyme to the pan - cooking until the shallot has softened and the garlic is fragrant, taking care not to burn the garlic.  Almost as soon as you can smell the garlic it is time to add the rice to the pan.  Continue cooking the rice with the shallot and garlic, stirring constantly, until every single grain of rice is coated with the oil - it will take on a kind of translucent look around the edges and will start to "squeak".

Now is the time to add the wine or lemon juice - I used lemon juice on this occasion, which I thought worked really well with the artichokes.  Continue stirring until virtually all the wine or juice has been absorbed by the rice.  Then begin to add the stock and saffron, one ladleful at a time - stirring constantly until each ladleful has been absorbed before adding the next. The rice will swell up considerably as it absorbs the stock, and when you get to the point where you think the rice will only take one or two more additions of stock, add in the pieces of cooked sausage.  Continue adding the stock until the rice is cooked through.  Remove the pan from the heat.

Add the artichokes to the rice, along with the butter, two-thirds of the parmesan, a generous pinch of flaky sea salt, and some freshly ground black pepper.  Stir well, cover the pan, and set aside for about 5 minutes for all the flavours to infuse.  Taste and adjust the seasoning as necessary.

Spoon the risotto into serving bowls, sprinkle over the the remaining Parmesan and serve immediately.

If you would like to get to know Tessa a little better, then do go and visit my friends at I Heart Cooking Clubs and see what they've all cooked up ...

... or check out Falling Cloudberries and many of Tessa's other great titles available from Amazon or Fishpond NZ.

         

I'm also sharing this at Cookbook Sundays, where my friends are delving into their cookbook collections and sharing some of their recipes.  Do stop by to see what they're cooking - you might even feel inspired to link up a recipe from one of your own cookbooks.