Things I have done today, part 2

[rhythmaning]

The other thing I did today was make rissotto risotto.

This was very much a first for me. Yesterday, for the first time ever, I made stock. This wasn’t quite ordinary stock: I used the carcass of a guinea fowl that we had in place of a chicken on Tuesday night. And what is more, never having made a stock, I actually followed a recipe. I played around with it of course, because that is what recipes are meant for; but I did actually go and buy both a leek and some celery, because Delia said it need to be in there.

I didn’t rate the stock much: it tasted strong and peppery, which I didn’t think bode well; and there was very little fat to skim off it. Which I think is good, but was a bit confusing.

I had intended to use white_hart’s recipe for risotto more or less, but I have neither a computer in the kitchen nor a printer, so instead I used one by Nigel Slater from Real Fast Food. Really just the same – though St Nigel uses butter instead of olive oil. By accident, I stuck to white_hart’s method here – no butter to cook with, so I used olive oil (which I have in abundance). Also, no onion, so I used lots of garlic.

But basically, sauté onion garlic, add the rice, cover in oil, add the wine, start stirring.

There was one mishap when I managed to spill (cold) stock all over the place, but I could cope with that. And then I stirred and stirred. (I can be quite good at stirring.) I was concerned, I must admit: I had no idea how it was going to turn out.

I also sauted mushroom and courgette, and added the remains of the guinea fowl to heat up, all chucked in just before serving. And lots of parmesan.

I was rather pleased. I am not a huge fan of risotto – I think maybe it just isn’t my thing – but I thought it was fine; and my wife – who is a huge fan – thought it was “delicious”, “amazing”, “scrummy” and “wonderful”. (This may have something to do with the three glass of wine I plied her with whilst I was stirring.) It didn’t taste at all how I expected: the stock seemed to have acquired a sweetness and richness (maybe that is down to the parmesan.

So I feel it was a success – and I know have the confidence to try it again; and since I know it works, it won’t be half so stressful.

Comments

[white_hart]

Yay! Risotto is definitely better home-cooked than any other way.

Guinea-fowl are a lot more like game birds than they are like chickens, which is why there's not much fat in the stock. In terms of vegetables to add to stocks, we just use what we have and it tends to be OK; always onions, then carrots/leeks/whatever happens to be lurking in the vegetable rack. The main thing is to cook it for long enough to get all the flavour out of the bones; any meat left on them should have lost its flavour.

[chickenfeet2003.livejournal.com]

Congrats! Risotto is one of those things that's a bit scary the first time but dead easy ever after.

[rhythmaning.livejournal.com]

Yup - scary-but-easy kind of sums it up!

[rhythmaning.livejournal.com]

I felt very wasteful throwing out all the vegetables - though I guess after a couple of hours, they would be tasteless mush, too?