Orange Roughy on a bed of pea and asparagus risotto ... in the Thermomix

I need to start off by saying that I am damned proud of this dish and how it turned out. It was absolutely delicious.

We've recently started having more fish as we've discovered a good fish supplier (almost) locally. It's an hour drive and back to get to them but we get excellent fresh fish and at great prices.

The Boy is always after me to make more fish to add to our diet, but I'm not a big fan of fish in general. I need my fish to be really, really fresh and not smell like fish. Can't stand that fishy smell!

Long story short, we went for a little trip and picked up some fish and Orange Roughy (a fish from New Zealand) was in the mix. The Boy loves Orange Roughy. I asked for two portions but didn't realise that for the Orange Roughy, one portion could feed two people. They came frozen (though I could have asked for them fresh, had I known!) and I just put them straight into the freezer.

The last few times that we have been out, The Boy has ordered fish and it has arrived on a bed of risotto of some sort. I thought that was a great way to serve fish, since we always find that fish on its own just isn't quite satisfying enough as a meal.

We had some friends over to dinner recently and I was at a loss as to what to cook for dinner and The Boy reminded me that we still had the Orange Roughy in the freezer, so I thought I'd serve the fish on a bed of risotto for the mains.

Here's what I did for the fish: (of course, it doesn't have to be Orange Roughy, you can use any fish you like).

Ingredients:

• Orange roughy (or any other type of) fish in single serve portions, as many as needed for number of people serving
• Salt
• Pepper
• Paprika 
• Olive oil

Instructions:

• Heat oven to 200°C
• Prepare baking trays with a sheet of aluminum foil on it. Lightly spray with oil (I use an olive oil spray)
• Place Orange Roughy onto the tray, depending on size of the tray, 2 or 4 to a tray
• Drizzle a small amount of olive oil on top of fish
• Sprinkle salt and pepper onto fish for taste
• Dust a light coating of paprika onto fish as well
• Bake in oven, uncovered for 8 - 10 minutes until fish is done
• Serve on a bed of pea and asparagus risotto

For the risotto, originally I thought of making a porcini and truffle risotto but then thought that the porcini and truffle might overpower the flavor of the fish, so went with pea and asparagus instead.

Here's how I made the risotto: (of course, if you don't have a Thermomix, you can make your risotto the traditional way).

Ingredients:

• 1 cup of Parmesan, block or shredded
• 1 onion, quartered
• 3 cloves of garlic
• 40g Olive oil
• 300g Arborio rice
• 80g white wine
• 4 tsp chicken stock
• 1 litre of hot water
• 1 cup peas
• 1 bunch asparagus, diced

Instructions:

• If Parmesan is in blocks, put in TM bowl, grind for 10 seconds, speed 7, remove and set aside
• Chop onion and garlic together Speed 6, 3 – 5 seconds, scrape sides
• Add olive oil and sauté at 100 degrees for 2 minutes
• Add Arborio rice and wine wine, sauté for 2 minutes at Reverse speed 1, 100 degrees
• Add stock and hot water, set time to 12 minutes, Reverse speed 1, 100 degrees
• After 12 minutes, peas and asparagus, cook at 100 degrees for 4 minutes, Reverse speed 1
• Remove risotto from TM bowl into a large serving bowl, fold in 2/3 of ground Parmesan, add pepper to taste.
• Serve risotto and sprinkle remaining Parmesan on dish. Enjoy.

A word of advice, timing is everything for this dish. You don't want your fish to be done too early and go cold or get overcooked, so time your risotto and when it is about 8 to 10 minutes from being ready, then pop your fish into the oven.

To serve, I put a generous scoop of the risotto onto the middle of a dinner plate and then placed the fish on top of the risotto. For garnish, I kept it simple and just drizzled a little olive oil over the outer rim of the plate.

If you do make this, be sure to post pictures for me to see either on Instagram - be sure to tag me with @langshipley or on my Daz In The Kitchen Facebook page.


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Bacon and beans risotto ... in the Thermomix

We've had an odd week this week. The Boy was supposed to be out quite a few nights on business dinners so I hadn't really planned to do much (if any) cooking at all. Tonight we're home together (again! Yay!) and I had nothing planned for dinner. I have a few serves of leftover Honey Soy Chicken though this time I did it with Hokkien noodles but the boy wanted to save those to take to work the next few days, so I suggested trying a new risotto dish that I've been meaning to make. Fortunately, The Boy was home early enough to take the bacon out of the freezer for me so that it would be defrosted by the time I was to cook.

As I stood preparing the ingredients and moving around my now minuscule kitchen, I had the odd thought that (hooray!) I am finally getting accustomed to this very teeny, tiny kitchen, where the two of us can't even be in the kitchen at the same time or we are bumping into each other or the cupboards. Still, it was a good moment and I felt glad for it that I felt settled or that I was at least settling into the kitchen, which takes us one step closer to feeling more like The New Apartment is home.

So, this new risotto dish ... again, you can make it using the basic risotto recipe but of course, I made it in the Thermomix. I have to say, the Thermomix is a working person's gift. So simple to use and such a time saver.

Here's the RECIPE for it:

Ingredients:

• 3 bacon rashers, or 6 shortcut pieces, roughly cut into largeish pieces
• 1 medium onion, peeled and halved
• 15g olive oil
• 380g arborio rice
• 100g red wine
• 1 tin chopped tomatoes
• 900g water
• 1 tin borlotti beans, drained
• chopped parsley, to serve
• 40g cream, optional

Instructions:

• heat the thermomix 2 minutes varoma speed 1
• add bacon, chop for 10 seconds on speed 5-6
• saute for 3 minutes varoma speed 1
• add onion on speed 5 for a few seconds
• add olive oil
• saute for 2 mins 100C speed 1
• pop in the butterfly
• add arborio rice and wine
• saute for 2mins 100c reverse speed 1
• add in stock concentrate (or 2 stock cubes), tomatoes and water
• cook for 11 mins 100c reverse speed 1
• add borlotti beans and cream and cook a further 5 mins 100c reverse speed 1
• Pour into thermoserver, mix to stir parsley through and leave to stand for 5 mins or so until more of the liquid is absorbed. serve with Parmesan if desired, season to taste
  

Again, because I can't help myself, I'm doing some things differently, but not drastically so.

I didn't chop the bacon in the Thermomix right in the beginning, rather, I cut them into large strips and put them in to cook on the varoma speed. The reason I didn't do this was because the next step was to chop the onion in the Thermomix and I didn't want mushy bacon. I actually wanted bacon bits for texture. After that, I cut up the onion according to the instructions (about 4 seconds) and that made both the bacon and the onion the perfect consistency and the right size for me.

Instead of 380g of rice, I only used 300g of rice. I remember reading somewhere that if you use a little less rice, your risotto ends up being a little juicier / creamier (with a bit more sauce) and I like it that way.

For stock instead of stock cubes, I used 3 heaped teaspoons of chicken stock, mixed into the 900g of (boiling) water.

After I added the beans, instead of cooking it for 5 minutes, I cooked it for 6 minutes just to give it a little more time for the sauce to thicken.

I also didn't use any cream because I'm lactose intolerant and while I can stand a little bit of cream, I rather not risk it.

Finally, instead of just adding Parmesan cheese at the end, I mixed a generous amount into the risotto and then I let it stand.

Of course, by the end, I just got lazy and left out the parsley. :-)

Oh, and I almost never use the Thermoserver. I just use my standard Corningware dish, which works beautifully. I'd only use the Thermoserver if I wanted to keep it warm for a couple of hours and I don't need to do that.

This turned out to be a very, very tasty risotto. It was rich, luscious and oh so delicious. I think I might have eaten too much because I had seconds. There's plenty for leftovers too, so I'm looking forward to that.

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Prawn and gorgonzola risotto ... in the Thermomix

Tonight I had intended to write a post about my crustless spinach quiche only to discover that I had already done it previously and just forgotten that I forgot that I did it. Duh me!

On top of that, my mid-week post is late since it's already Thursday night. Sorry 'bout that. Very slack of me. I have no excuses. I've just been hiding away in The Apartment amusing myself and passing time watching videos while The Boy has been away for work and missing him terribly.

The Boy came home tonight. Yay!

So ... instead, I thought I'd post yet another risotto recipe and yes, again, this one is done in the Thermomix, but really, if you follow the instructions in my basic risotto recipe being made the traditional way, you can easily modify the recipe to do this.

The Boy loves this dish and we often serve it as a starter for dinner parties. It's simply delicious, especially if you love prawns and gorgonzola.

A word of advice, the saffron adds a lot. I once didn't have any saffron and ran out to Cole to buy some cheap Masterfoods saffron. It didn't taste nearly as good. If you can, try to get some good quality saffron. I'm very fortunate, a very good friend (and one of my boys) is Iranian and each time he goes back to Iran, I have him bring me back some mondo premium saffron for me to cook with. I definitely recommend a friend like that. Spanish saffron is pretty good too and definitely much better that the crap they sell at Coles, but in a pinch, that will have to do.

Here's the RECIPE for the risotto:

Ingredients

• ½ onion
• 3 cloves of garlic
• Handful of fresh basil
• 40g Olive oil
• 300g Arborio rice
• 80g white wine
• 4 tsp chicken stock
• 2 pinch of saffron
• 1 litre of hot water
• 10 king prawns shelled, without tails
• 80g Gorgonzola
• 10 cherry tomatoes
• 2 handfuls of baby spinach

Instructions

• Chop onion, garlic and basil together Speed 6, 3 – 5 seconds, scrape sides
• Add olive oil and sauté at 100 degrees for 2 minutes
• Put in butterfly
• Add Arborio rice and wine wine, sauté for 2 minutes at Reverse speed 1, 100 degrees
• Add stock, hot water mixed with saffron, set time to 13 minutes, Reverse speed 1, 100 degrees
• After 13 minutes, add prawns, cook at 100 degrees for 2 minutes, Reverse speed 1
• Add tomatoes and gorgonzola (crumbled) cook at 100 degrees for 1 minute, Reverse speed 1
• To serve, add 2 handfuls of baby spinach to bottom of thermoserver, then pour in risotto. Cover and rest for 5 minutes, then serve

I don't vary this recipe at all though I would be careful of the use of the gorgonzola. The gorgonzola is very strong, so if you don't like too strong a flavor ease off on the amount used and as a rule, try not to use more than the recommended amount in the recipe.

Oh and you don't need salt as the gorgonzola will provide plenty of saltiness to taste but you might want to season with pepper.

I often serve this on a bed of rocket for the spiciness of the leaves rather than spinach.

Enjoy!

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Off sick ... so an oldie but goodie, making risotto

It would appear that there is a stomach virus floating around and I have caught it. I've been nauseous and unwell for the entire weekend. In fact, aside from a few commitments, I spent most of the weekend in bed. My weekend which was supposed to be a fun weekend in The House with The Boy turned out to be me mostly tired and horizontal. Not much fun at all.

Today is Monday and I'm home from work because I woke up feeling miserable and dragged myself off to the doctor. Unfortunately, there was nothing the doctor could prescribe for me to make me feel better which was a bummer. I want drugs to make me feel better!!!

There has not been much cooking as a result and no planning of meals either. There are a few reasons for that, one because we were away and I was unwell, plus The Boy is away most of this week interstate for work.

I'm going to make a chicken and mushroom risotto for dinner tonight in the Thermomix, just because it's easy and it's yummy. I'm really not up to anything fancy or trying anything new.

There wasn't any Sunday night cooking of any note either. On Saturday, we had intended dinner to be our usual "The House" dinner which consists of hot dogs made with beef sausages and corn on the cob. However, after a rather late lunch, we weren't terribly hungry, The Boy had an apple and I had nothing cos I was laid up in bed feeling ill. Saturday night's dinner was brought forward to last night and between that and me not feeling well, last night's dinner was not terribly exciting.

Funny thing about the hot dogs though, The Boy claimed that the dinner last night did not taste as good in The Apartment as it does in The House. Odd, isn't it? The only thing that is really different is that instead of cooking the sausages on a BBQ grill, we cook the sausages in a pan. I guess the flavor is different cooked that way? Not entirely certain, but that could be the case.

Anyhow, I'll stop rambling now, which is mostly what I've been doing for this entire post, but I didn't want to just not post anything this week.

Other posts that I'm planning:

• Prawn and gorgonzola risotto
• Spinach, fetta and mushroom quiche
• Raspberry fool (this is a dessert)

See you all when I'm feeling better!


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Chicken and mushroom risotto ... in the Thermomix

Tonight we are having a favorite in our home - chicken and mushroom risotto.

I've taken to cooking my risottos in the Thermomix because it's just so dang easy and also because I've been able to perfect it over the last many months and now it tastes just amazing. However, if you don't have a Thermomix, my regular risotto cooking recipe is here.

Chicken and mushroom risotto is a standard in our home whenever we feel like risotto, or rather, whenever I feel like risotto. The Boy never complains about risotto because he loves it.

This is actually a variation of the recipe for a Prawn and Gorgonzola risotto which I will post another time, when I make it again. It's really very delicious too.

Here's the standard RECIPE that I normally use, which is what I do 9 times out of 10. Just ignore the fact that tonight I decided to do it a little differently.

Ingredients:

• ½ onion
• 3 cloves of garlic
• 40g Olive oil
• 300g Arborio rice
• 80g white wine
• 4 tsp chicken stock
• 1 litre of hot water
• 3 pieces of chicken thigh - cut into very small pieces
• 6 to 8 button or brown mushrooms, sliced
• 1 cup of Parmesan cheese - shredded

Instructions:

• Chop onion and garlic together Speed 6, 3 – 5 seconds, scrape sides
• Add olive oil and sauté at 100 degrees for 2 minutes, at Reverse speed 1
• Add Arborio rice and wine wine, sauté for 2 minutes at Reverse speed 1, 100 degrees
• Add chicken pieces, stock and hot water, set time to 12 minutes, Reverse speed 1, 100 degrees
• After 12 minutes, add mushrooms, cook at 100 degrees for 4 minutes, Reverse speed 1
• Once that is done, remove from Thermomix into a large serving dish - I use a Corning Ware container with lid
• Mix in 3/4 cup of Parmesan cheese and let it sit for 2 minutes
• Add salt and pepper to season to taste
  
• Serve into plates or bowls and sprinkle a bit more Parmesan cheese before eating
• Enjoy!

I decided to be a little adventurous tonight and instead of just regular olive oil, I went with truffle oil. I'm not sure how that will turn out because (1) I've never tried with truffle oil though I think it will be good and (2) my truffle oil is a trifle (ha ha) old and is not as flavorful as I would like it to be.

I also OD'd a bit on the onion because I forgot the recipe was only ½ an onion and I thought it was 1 onion, and I already had ½ an onion that was cut up in the fridge. So, yours truly ended up with 1 ½ onions in the risotto. Oh yeah, we also love garlic, so I used like 6 or 8 cloves of garlic, but that's normal. I always use a lot of garlic in my cooking. It keeps those winter colds away. :-)

I'd just like to point out that unlike most other cooking that I do, I actually follow the recipe for the risotto quite closely and seldom vary it.

Anyway, tonight's risotto was delicious. The Boy thinks it is probably the best risotto I've made. The truffle flavor was very subtle but according to The Boy is really added to the overall taste of the dish. I'm very pleased with the way it turned out. I even had seconds, which for those who know me, will know that's very unusual.

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Getting ready to cook tonight's dinner

All the ingredients one needs for a chicken and mushroom risotto, which is on the menu tonight.

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Risotto, risotto, risotto

Hands up the people who love risotto! I can't say that I am one of them, mostly because I don't eat a lot of carbs, and hence I do not cook a lot of carbs. This led to The Boy saying the other day: "I walked down the pasta aisle at Coles the other day and had pasta envy". Bottomline, he wanted me to cook more pasta. Risotto is not pasta, but it's Italian and it's carbs. And The Boy does like risotto.

A common myth about risotto - which I would like to dispel right away. You DO NOT stir risotto. Stirring aggravates the starch, which leads to carbs, which leads to all those things they say you should not have carbs for. Instead, you should just agitate (or flip) the pan you are cooking the risotto in (not a pot) and only stir (very gently) occasionally in order to make sure that all the rice is coated in stock. Repeat after me, "stirring, bad!". If you cook pasta or rice al dente, and do not stir or beat it around roughly, you do not activate the carbs. Result? 2/3 less carbs in the pasta or rice you are eating. Much better for you.

I'm not strong enough to flip the pan, so I agitate it, which basically means shaking it back and forth on the burner. I shudder to think that that shaking back and forth, metal on metal, on the burner will do to the bottom of my pan, but that's the point of using the pan the correct way, I guess.

In case you are wondering what I mean by agitating, flipping or shaking back and forth, here's a video that will show you how to do it, courtesy of someone who has uploaded the vid. Note the shaking back and forth before the flipping. The flipping is pretty impressive, but I'm not strong enough to do that, so I just shake it. This vid is shot using a wok. It doesn't matter wok or fry pan.

Okay, so onto making the risotto. Here's the RECIPE for making a base risotto. From this base, you can pretty much make any type of risotto.

Ingredients:

• 1 onion diced
• 2 or 3 garlic cloves, finely minced (more garlic, if you like it)
• 1 litre stock (type depends on the risotto you are making, either chicken or vegetable) per 2 cups of rice
• 2 cups of Arborio rice
• 75g of unsalted butter
• Olive oil
• 1/2 to 1 cup of Parmesan cheese for texture

Instructions:

• Heat stock and bring to boil. Turn off heat but make sure that stock stays hot
• Put frying pan (large enough for the amount of risotto you are making) on medium heat and add olive oil
• Put onions and garlic into pan and saute till onions are translucent
• Melt butter into pan and when butter is melted add rice
• Coat rice in butter by flipping pan (do not stir - you don't want to activate the starch) and brown over heat for a few minutes
• When rice starts to turn a lovely yellow color, add one 3/4 ladle of stock to the pan
• Simmer stock in pan, flipping pan occasionally, until stock is absorbed
• Add more stock and repeat until rice is al dente. This means the rice needs to be firm but not hard (and the rice does not crunch).

Note: you can occasionally use a spatula and gently scrape along the sides of the pan or turn over the rice from bottom to top, to make sure all the rice is covered by stock and absorbing

I learned that while doing this, my pan was a little too hot at the beginning and I had to turn the heat down. The result of the pan being too hot was that all my stock was evaporating and it was not being absorbed into the rice. That is not good.

So that's the base risotto. What happens next is that you add whatever flavoring you want to make it a risotto of your choice.

For a mushroom risotto:

Ingredients:

• A whole bunch of different types of mushrooms
• 1/2 cup parsley, finely chopped

Instructions:

• About 2/3 way through the stock absorption process of the rice, add in the mushrooms and fold through mushrooms to make sure the mushrooms are mixed through the rice
• Continue to add stock until risotto is al dente.
• When risotto is al dente, add Parmesan cheese for texture
• After Parmesan cheese is mixed in, just before serving, gently fold through parsley to add a bit of color to the dish
• Top the risotto with a small handful of rocket salad in a white wine vinegar and dijon mustard dressing

Note: The mushrooms will release liquid, so watch this to determine how much more stock to add. Also, you want the risotto to have enough liquid in it yet, so that it falls off individually from the spoon when scooped up, instead of being clumpy.  You can add a bit more stock for this.

For a pumpkin and goat cheese risotto:

Ingredients:

• 4 cups grated pumpkin
• 1 packet goat cheese fetta crumbled

Instructions:

• Grate the pumpkin
• About 2/3 way through the stock absorption process of the rice, add in the grated pumpkin and fold through to make sure the pumpkin are mixed through the rice
• Continue to add stock until risotto is al dente.
• When risotto is al dente, add Parmesan cheese for texture
• After Parmesan cheese is mixed in, serve into plates
• Sprinkle a small amount of the crumbled goat cheese on top of the risotto
• Top the risotto with a small handful of rocket salad in a white wine vinegar and dijon mustard dressing

For the rocket salad:

Ingredients:

• Packet of rocket, whatever amount is needed to serve the number of people you are serving
• 1 tablespoon white wine vinegar
• 3 tablespoons olive oil
• 1 teaspoon dijon mustard
• Pinch of salt and pepper

Instructions:

• Mix white wine vinegar, olive oil, dijon, salt and pepper together to make dressing
• Pour over rocket and mix through
• Serve

Note: do not mix dressing into salad until just before serving, otherwise the rocket will wilt.

There you have it, 2 variations of risotto from that one base. Of course, there are lots of different variations that you can concoct now that you know that base risotto.

Chicken and chorizo sausage is a very tasty variation and works great as a main meal. With the chorizo though, while frying it in a pan with the onions and garlic, it will release oil, because of the fat in the sausage. You want that oil to coat the rice along with the butter because that will give you all that lovely smoked chorizo flavor.

Another one that I like is chicken and green peas. It's a very clean simple dish and the peas add a lovely dash of color to the pale chicken risotto.

The sky's the limit. Enjoy!

So, are you going to try these risotto dishes? How do you like the variations? What would you like to add to the basic risotto recipe to make it essentially your own? 

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