Risotto is a quick and easy dish which can be made for a starter or as a main dish at any meal time. It is wonderful to try different styles of risotto or even create one yourself. If you are a starter in making risotto maybe stick to the classic chicken and mushrooms risotto. This recipe I’m sharing today is a chicken and mushroom risotto with a twist so it taste slightly different to the original. Risotto is a flavourful dish, but if you ask me how often I would eat risotto I would say once every 2 months or longer, but if you ask my partner this question he would say twice a week-it just shows how much he loves it. For me risotto is very similar to most Asian congee.
Different people make risotto in different ways so I wouldn’t say there’s a right or wrong way of making it as long as you know when the rice is cooked. It often takes about 20 minutes to cook the arborio rice, but that varies depending on your stove and heat level. One thing about risotto is that it takes a lot of liquid to cook the rice from about 3-5 cups of broth/water, this also depends on the amount of rice used and how cooked you want your rice to be.
Note: it is important to keep an eye on the risotto every few minutes while cooking as the liquid disappears very quickly which can easily cause the base of the risotto to burn. So to help avoid any burning remember to stir it frequently and add more liquid when it starts to dry out.
I recommend adding 1 cup of liquid at a time because as mentioned earlier, the liquid dries out pretty quick.
I use water and flavour the dish with salt, but feel free to use stock like the original recipes do if you prefer. Keep in mind to use less or no salt if you are using stock instead of water.
PEAS AND MUSHROOM RISOTTO
Prep-Time: 10 minutes Serve: 3
Cooking Time: 30 minutes
Ingredients
1 large chicken breast, sliced
1 1/2 cup arborio rice
1 cup white wine
3 1/2 cup water/chicken stock
1 onion, chopped
1 1/2 cup sliced mushrooms
1/2 cup frozen mint peas (use fresh peas if available)
1/2 tsp nutmeg
3 garlic cloves, minced
1 1/2 tbsp shredded parmesan cheese
Salt to taste
3 tbsp olive oil
5 basil leaves to garnish
Method
Heat the oil in a pot over medium high heat, add in the mushrooms and onion once the oil is heated. Sauté the mushrooms and onion for 3 minutes or until the mushrooms have shrunken down. Add in the garlic, nutmeg, peas and salt and then stir to cook the garlic for 1 minute. Add in the chicken and cook until most parts of the chicken turn white.
Add in the rice, wine and a cup of water/chicken stock. Leave the pot to boil and then reduce heat to medium. Allow to simmer down until most of the liquid is absorbed by the rice, add in another cup of water and leave to simmer down again. Continue to add more liquid once the liquid is absorbed by the rice until the rice is cooked through and there’s no more white hard spots remaining on the rice grains.
Remove from the heat and sprinkle the parmesan cheese on top, stir to combine and allow the cheese to melt into the rice. Transfer onto a serving dish and top with a bit more parmesan cheese and chopped basil.
