Happy Chicken Week - Part 4 - Risotto, Sausage, and Arancine

One great application of chicken stock is making risotto. Because of the effort involved in making it, I like to throw a lot of veggies and meat in and have it as a meal instead of a side. Not that it is hard, it's just time consuming and needs attention. Like all the things we make, we made a ton and had lunches for work the next day. It kept great and possibly even tasted better the next day! This recipe is similar to a Giada recipe you can check out here.

I wont be giving much detail about the amounts and stuff because risotto is more of a process then a recipe, and once you know the process you can do it however you want.

These were the best peppers we have gotten in Bermuda ever.

About 4 cups of that delicious happy chicken stock. we added 2 cups of water because it would reduce on the stove. Also we knew there would be a lot of flavor in this dish as is.

Why do they look blue?

A brief side note about the sausage: Mandi and I have been on our "happy meat only" diet that I mentioned earlier this week. Since organic sausage can be very difficult to find here in Bermuda, I have been making a sort-of fake sausage. I call it fake because there isn't enough fat in the meat to really be called sausage, since only pork loin is available in the organics. So I ask the butcher to grind me some of the happy pork loin. When I get it home, I add all the sausage spices and let it sit for a bit before using. It turns out delicious and much better for you than using real sausage. The spice mixture in the meat pictured is toasted fennel and red pepper flakes, butter and a little oregano. This time around I happen to forget to add garlic and parsley, but no biggie because I can just put some in when I start cooking it. I am still perfecting this process so I don't really have a science behind it, I just do what I think will taste good. And taste good it does, it was delicious in this meal. I wouldn't suggest this in an instance where you need the sausage to stand alone, but in something like pasta or risotto where there is already a lot of juiciness, it tastes great! It was also good on pizza for the pizza party which is where I originally came up with this idea of a quick-fix happy sausage.

Pancetta

Mandi is ready. She knows the task set before her. Utensil in hand she is prepared to stir for the requisite 20 min to half hour.

The sausage and pancetta go in.

I add the parsley I forgot before. this all needs to brown

Onions peppers and garlic go in. give it another 5 min

I love how Arborio rice comes all vacuumed up like this. Anyone know why? It didn't say on Wikipedia.

Add the rice and stir to coat

Wow look at how clean my stove is... its spotless... hmm

Grab some white wine

And pour it in 2 cups. Look how classy our wine glasses are. Mandi puts an ice cube in for that extra something.

Oh yea. Put about 3/4s of a cup of the wine in here too.

When the wine starts to evaporate, add a ladle or 2 of the simmering chicken stock.

Keep stirring the whole time. Whenever the liquid is mostly gone, add another ladle.

We added the asparagus with the last ladle of stock because we didn't want it all mushy.

Parmesan is very important to risotto. Use the good stuff. Stir it in when it is off the heat.

Oh man it's was sooooo good.

Some more parm and parsley on top is a nice touch.

If this were a mountainside, I would live in that cave on the center right with the asparagus as my ledge to look out upon my risotto kingdom.

After we each took a batch to work the next day, there was still some left. The starch starts to get really hard after a day or 2 so the best thing to do at this point is to make fried risotto balls!!! In traditional Italian cuisine, this is called arancine, but fried risotto balls sounds better to me. This pic is Mandi putting the leftover parm from the night before into the breadcrumbs.