Another Pumpkin Risotto

I've come a long way down the Risotto highway since I first had a crack at making one back in June. Since then I've learned that as long as you have patience, anything goes. Also, once you know the steps in your head, you can prep as you go, so you don't lose all that time getting everything ready beforehand. After all, once you put the rice in, you're pretty much committed for the coming 30 minutes or so anyway.

This one was, by unanimous agreement, my best ever. Better than the Bacon and Leek effort, and even better than the other Pumpkin and Ham one. Isaac wanted more, and more, and more, so it must have been good!

Pumpkin & Ham Risotto (MKII)

(Serves 4)

Finely chop 1 onion and 3 cloves of NZ garlic. Grate up 1/4 of a grey pumpkin. Add the veges to heated oil in a large pan and stir as the moisture evaporates. When the veges become a bit sticky add 3/4 Cup of Arborio Rice. Keep everything moving until the rice starts to turn translucent. Tip in a mixture of 2T Balsamic Vinegar and 1/2C Warm water. Keep stirring.
As the liquid is absorbed, start adding heated chicken or vege stock by the ladel, probably about 2 1/2 Cups in 1/4 Cup increments. Add another ladel of stock as each is absorbed and before the rice starts sticking to the pan.

During this time, chop up a whole tomato, 125g of deli ham, and grate 1/4 Cup of Parmesan cheese.

When the rice is so nearly done you can tell it only needs a couple more minutes, add the tomato and ham and stir through. Check the rice, and when done, remove from the heat and stir through the Parmesan and 3T of cream. Mix in and allow to stand for just a minute before dishing. Drizzle with a little extra virgin olive oil, freshly ground pepper and salt, and a wee grating of Parmesan.

What's the best thing about this meal?

Only one dirty pan.

Excellent.

Ham and Vegetable Fritattas

Can you spell Vege Overload? This dish could just as easily be a vegetarian option simply by omitting the Ham. This is a great way to sneak a bunch of veges onto the kids' plates, and also a fantastic way of enjoying really fresh produce. Strange, you might say, it wouldn't seem that putting veges in a fry pan covered in egg would do anything for them, but I was pleasantly surprised.

Ham and Vegetable Fritattas (serves 4)

Cube and boil a kumara and two potatoes in lightly salted water.

Slice a handful of mushrooms, one red onion, 5 cloves of garlic, 1/4 of a capsicum, and 3 or 4 leaves of silverbeet. Cut a few florets of brocolli and cauli. Cut 3 slices of ham into small pieces (if you're not set on the vege rush).
When the potato and kumera are just cooked, drain through a colander, reserving the cooking water. Allow to cool slightly (so that the heat of the veges doesn't start cooking the egg prematurely). Return the water to the pot and put the pot back on the heat, bringing the water to the boil. Put the brocolli and cauli in a colander and place in the boiling water, blanching for about 4 minutes. This will heat the florets but leave them crunchy and full of flavour.

In a small non-stick frying pan, heat 1T of olive oil.

For each fritatta:
In a small bowl, add a portion of everything you now have ready, including a scattering of ham if you're using it, and 1-2 eggs (I always think I need to do 2, and it always ends up being too much for the pan, greedy boy!). Mix well. When the oil is hot (but not smoking) scrape in the fritatta mixture. Allow the egg to set on the bottom, then keep the fritatta moving by jiggling the pan frequently. When the upper side of the fritatta is semi-solid, flip the fritatta. If you're not confident that you can do this without destroying the meal (as I so often do), slide the fritatta out onto a plate, then place the frying pan upside-down over the uncooked side, hold it all carefully with a tea towel or two, and flip it over. Brown on the underside and dish with a bit of pepper and your favourite sauce or relish.
Repeat until you have cooked enough for everyone, or else some people might get a bit titchy at being forgotten.

Pumpkin and Ham Risotto

Back to the quick and easy. My journey into RisottoLand is branching out gradually, and this is a minor variation on the Ham and Tomato Risotto I posted a couple of weeks ago. The thing about Risottos is that they're a great way to use up food that really needs to be finished off, and you can throw almost anything in them. I had a pumpkin turning a bit ripe in the cupboard, so into the Risotto it goes. I also blanched a handful of the usual greens - carrots, broccoli, and cauliflower - in the water that I used to boil the pumpkin, and added them in just at the end.

Pumpkin and Ham Risotto


Cut up 1/4 of a big grey pumpkin. Slice off the skin and cube into 1cm pieces. Boil in salted water until tender but not quite cooked and put aside in a colander. Reserve the cooking water.

Heat some olive oil in a large pan, and add 1 chopped onion and 3 finely sliced or crushed cloves of garlic. When the onion starts to go translucent, add about 200g of chopped ham and allow to brown lightly. Mix in 1 cup of Arborio Rice. This will snap and crackle a bit, so keep it all moving to prevent it from burning to the bottom of the pan. Give it about 3 minutes, then add 1/4 of a cup of Vegetable Stock. If this is prewarmed, it will speed the cooking process. As the rice starts to absorb the liquid, add the pumpkin and mix in gently. The pumpkin will give the Risotto a lovely orange colour and a slightly gooey texture.

Blanch a small colander of fresh veges in the pumpkin water and stand aside.

Continue to add the stock in 1/4 Cups, letting it cook the rice gently, and add a bit of the pumpkin water if you run out of stock (allow 1 - 1 1/2 Cups). When the rice is nearly done, add the veges to the pan and mix through. When the rice is cooked, mix through 1/4 cup of sour cream and heat for a couple of minutes longer.

Serve with a scoop of sour cream, freshly ground pepper, and a drizzle of EV Olive Oil.


Our other exciting news on the food front is that, after several weeks of watching the mailer advertising for bargains and specials, we picked up a Slow Cooker for a mere $50.00. Our first foray into the Slow Cooking world was a Whole Chicken, which I'll post soon. Divine! Right at this minute we have Lamb Chops simmering away too. Watch this space for more!

A recipe for Risotto what I stoleded...

I discovered two new things last week: Risotto, and deseeding tomatoes.

The Risotto I will cover in detail just below. The concept of removing most of what makes the tomato a tomato struck me as strange, even slightly blasphemous, but I gave it a go anyway. I have resolved to try it in other things in the future, as it worked quite well in this particular instance. For the risotto, it added some flavour, colour and body to the dish without introducing a sudden excess of moisture that then would have had to be cooked off, and the acidity may have thoroughly altered the dynamic of the meal. For the record, I tried it in my stuffed sausages tonight, and it left them too dry, so its not for every meal. On the matter of "why-would-you-waste-so-much-of-the-tomato?", I figure the seeds just go into the compost, which goes into the garden eventually, and then up pop lovely wild tomatoes. Its like a storage vault, much like the flash one they just built in Norway, only closer and warmer.

It must be easy to make risotto if I can manage a reasonably passable one on my first try. I was surprised. When we were growing up, the only risottos I knew were those weird packet microwave ones, that are all dry and tasted like numbers. I couldn't fathom why anyone would want to willingly cook up something like that.

Then as time went by I kept seeing cooking shows where cooks were whipping up moist, delicious looking risottos that didn't take long and, it seems, were as flexible as your imagination. And I wondered, maybe there was something in it. Like rice, for example.

More time went by.

Then it happened. By the magic of the preplanned menu, we decided to make a risotto. Here's the trick: I used a recipe (!!) There's a prize for anyone who can identify the origin of this recipe, which I have modified slightly so as not to infringe any copyrights. I'll give you one clue: it's a New Zealand Chef.

Ham & Tomato Risotto

Heat 2T of olive oil in a large pan, preferably a cast iron one. Chop up an onion and a few cloves of garlic and soften this in the oil. Chop up 250g Ham and add this to the pan. Brown this lightly, before adding 1C of Arborio rice.

Cook this all together for about 3 minutes. Pour in 1/2C of Vegetable stock and simmer until absorbed. Add another 1/2C and repeat, until you have added 2 - 2 1/2C of stock to the pan. If you have homemade vege stock on hand, use this. If not, you can get some quite good real stocks from the supermarket, which is what we used this time.

Deseed and dice 3 tomatoes and grate 1/4C of Parmesan.

When the liquid has reduced down and the rice is cooked, add the tomatoes, parmesan, 1/4C of sour cream, and 1/4C of chopped fresh herbs (basil or similar - use less for stronger herbs like sage). Combine and season with freshly ground salt and pepper. Heat through and serve with freshly grated parmesan and a little drizzle of EV Olive Oil, plus freshly ground pepper if you like.


Just like that.

BTW, there's not really a prize, but have a guess anyway.