We nicked this one off Jamie Oliver from his Jamie's Italy book. Which is very good by the way.
This recipe will put most people off at the get-go. It sounds pretentious and fiddly for a start. Also, not many of us do or ever will like anchovies. Cauliflower rarely gets used in any apart from cauliflower cheese and is therefore forgettable. We'll be honest and say that we've never cooked with either..... until now.
And, by gollyfuck it's good. The florets of cauliflower give off a great taste into the risotto--which apart from the said veg is basically just a risotto bianco (arborio, celery, onion, garlic, white wine and stock with herbs and seasoning). I'm stuck to say anything better than "great taste" for the cauliflower because it doesn't really taste like anything else.
As for the anchovy breadcrumbs (pangratto to those who give a flying feck), they work mainly for texture and appearances' sake than anything else. Of course, you get that saltiness hitting you as you crunch in but as long as you've not salted the rice and your stock's not particularly salty then it shouldn't over power the dish. The chilli gives a small bit of heat but not enough to worry anyone with a weak tongue.
As for cooking it, once you get used to cooking the cauliflower and stock together and using this pan for two purposes then it's a relative doddle if you've got used to making risottos (like we have: see our Jerusalem artichoke and asparagus one).
So, anyway here's the recipe, starting with the basic risotto and then moving on:
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main courses | serves 6
This is a great recipe for making risotto. You want it to be smooth, creamy and oozy, not thick and stodgy.
Ingredients:
• approx• 1.1 litres/2 pints stock (chicken, fish or vegetable as appropriate)
• 1 knob of butter
• 2 tablespoons olive oil
• 1 large onion, finely chopped
• 2 cloves of garlic, finely chopped
• ½ a head of celery, finely chopped
• 400g/14oz risotto rice
• 2 wineglasses of dry white vermouth (dry Martini or Noilly Prat) or dry white wine
• sea salt and freshly ground black pepper
• 70g/2½oz butter
• 115g/4oz freshly grated Parmesan cheese
stage 1
Heat the stock. In a separate pan heat the olive oil and butter, add the onions, garlic and celery, and fry very slowly for about 15 minutes without colouring. When the vegetables have softened, add the rice and turn up the heat.
stage 2
The rice will now begin to lightly fry, so keep stirring it. After a minute it will look slightly translucent. Add the vermouth or wine and keep stirring — it will smell fantastic. Any harsh alcohol flavours will evaporate and leave the rice with a tasty essence.
stage 3
Once the vermouth or wine has cooked into the rice, add your first ladle of hot stock and a good pinch of salt. Turn down the heat to a simmer so the rice doesn’t cook too quickly on the outside. Keep adding ladlefuls of stock, stirring and almost massaging the creamy starch out of the rice, allowing each ladleful to be absorbed before adding the next. This will take around 15 minutes. Taste the rice — is it cooked? Carry on adding stock until the rice is soft but with a slight bite. Don’t forget to check the seasoning carefully. If you run out of stock before the rice is cooked, add some boiling water.
stage 4
Remove from the heat and add the butter and Parmesan. Stir well. Place a lid on the pan and allow to sit for 2 minutes. This is the most important part of making the perfect risotto, as this is when it becomes outrageously creamy and oozy like it should be. Eat it as soon as possible, while the risotto retains its beautiful texture.
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Ingredients [for Cauliflower risotto]:
• 2 handfuls of stale bread, torn into pieces
• 1 small tin of anchovies, oil from tin reserved
• 3 small dried red chillies
• extra virgin olive oil
• 1 cauliflower
• 1 x risotto bianco
• a handful of chopped fresh parsley
• sea salt and freshly ground black pepper
• Parmesan cheese, for grating
Whiz the bread in a food processor with the anchovies, the oil from the tin and the chillies. Heat a frying pan with a splash of oil and fry the flavoured breadcrumbs, stirring and tossing constantly until golden brown.
Trim the coarse leaves off the cauliflower and cut out the stalk. Chop the nice inner part of the stalk finely. Start making your risotto bianco, adding the chopped cauliflower stalk to the pan with the onion and celery at Stage 1. Add the cauliflower florets to your pan of hot stock.
Continue to follow the basic risotto recipe, adding the stock bit by bit until the rice is half cooked. By now the cauliflower florets should be quite soft, so you can start to add them to the risotto with the stock, crushing them into the rice as you go. Continue until the rice is cooked and all the cauliflower has been added.
At Stage 4, when you add the butter and Parmesan, stir in the parsley, taste and season. Sprinkle with the anchovy pangrattato, grate some more Parmesan over the top and serve.
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