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This dish really needs a whole lotta love...it was the wrong dish for someone so impatient (not me. hmm..ok, me).
Why did I even try?
I've tried a couple of pricey risotto dishes from some fancy restaurants...and I was unhappy with their mushy, bland, flavorless rice. I wonder if it's really that difficult to make.
I thought all I had to do was dump the rice + the rest of the ingredients into my rice cooker, leave it cooking while I watch Top Chef/Master Chef/Project Runway online/bite my fingernails/do nothing/munch on chocolates/day dream/annoy the heck outta sous chef...while smelling wonderful scents of mushrooms from the rice cooker...and when I heard the "ding"!...I'd open my rice cooker to see a pot of steaming hot, flavorful, delicious, wonderful, gorgeous, perfectly al dente mushroom risotto.
I should've probably gone for those instant microwaveable risotto eh?
Oh gosh...
Here are the ingredients...there aren't many. This is probably why I thought it was gonna be easy.
- 2 cloves of garlic, finely chopped
- 2 cloves of shallot, finely chopped
- 2 cups of fresh shitake, sliced
- dried Italian mixed herbs (sage, oregano, thyme, rosemary)
- about 2 cups of chicken stock
- salt, black pepper, olive oil
- white wine (I used whatever it is available in my fridge)
See my ghetto way of sealing wine bottle...cling wrap + rubber band = not good.
I couldn't help but photograph the rice...look how cute those small grains are. I haven't used this kind of rice before...they look similar to normal white rice...but just in creamier color...
...and the ever so photogenic shitake...
Oh, man, what have I got myself into?
In a frying pan, saute garlic and shallot in a bit of olive oil, until fragrant and the shallot turns translucent. Add sliced mushrooms, add white wine, season with salt, pepper and mixed herbs. Cook until you don't taste alcohol in the wine, set aside.
Then, heat up chicken stock in a pot. Once the stock is hot, place rice in another pot and pour a bit of chicken stock, start cooking.
Once you see that most of the chicken stock has been absorbed by the rice, add more chicken stock, not too much a at time. Shake the pot to help the rice absorb the stock.
Forget soap operas, filing your nails, etc. Expect to do this pouring-stock-and-shaking-pot for quite a while (about 30-40 minutes). Don't do this in summer...it's beyond torturous.
You'll see the volume of the rice increasing...when it's almost there, add the mushrooms with its cooking juices in.
It's done when the rice's done. Creamy but firm, not hard, not mushy.
Let the risotto sit for a bit, and serve.
Is it worth all that trouble? In winter, yes. Yum, oh yum!
In summer? Oh, puhleeze.
Remind me never to do that again.
I seem to have a thing for eating my drinks...
which can be seen from my previous posts:
- Ginger Cola Grilled Chicken Wings
- Spam & Shrimps Virgin Colada
I haven't been adventurous enough to try incorporating coffee and chocolate in savoury dishes, maybe because I didn't wanna risk any single cell of chocolate and coffee goodness for my bound-to-fail experiments. Seeing them go to waste would make me totally heartbroken, worse than the sadness I felt when I broke up with my first boyfriend.
The idea of this dish started when I saw a bottle of chilled white wine, a sprite and a pack of chicken leg fillet (an aftermath from my last party). My hands itched to put them together. Plus, I didn't have other ingredients to work with the chicken, and the expiry date of the chicken is creeping closer. So I had to act fast.
White Wine, Sprite & Lemon Grilled Chicken
Recipe
(serves two)
- 2 boneless chicken thigh fillet, halved
- white wine
- sprite
- lemon zest, lemon juice (1 tbsp)
- white pepper
- salt (1 tsp)
- honey (1 tsp)
In a baking dish/pan, lay chicken thigh fillet, skin up. Pour sprite and white wine (50-50 mix) up to the level right it covers the chicken. Add salt, pepper, lemon zest and lemon juice, mix well, marinate chicken fillet for a few hours or overnight in the fridge.
Preheat oven to 220C, slather honey over chicken skin, sprinkle with a bit of salt, and grill chicken (with the marinating liquid, make sure the liquid doesn't cover chicken skin), until the skin turned golden brown. Serve with carb of your choice (rice, potatoes, pasta), and use some of the delicious juices from the grill as well.
Plus, I love the fact that eating my drinks won't give me a hangover....^_^
It's that time of the month's again...which means that I get unreasonably bitchy and we get to feast on wonderful photographs posted in Still Life Food Photograpy community. Be sure to drop by when you're not hungry, or it would be such a torture (that just happened to me, now I have to be a scavenger, hunting for remnants of lunch or snacks from my colleagues' desk).
The theme this month is shellfish, and I particularly love how photogenic shrimps are, so here's what I made:
Sauteed Shrimps in White Wine
Recipe
- 2 cups of medium sized shrimps, keep shell on
- 5 cloves of garlic, finely chopped
- butter, olive oil, salt, sugar, black pepper, lime juice, lime zest
- white wine
- italian herb mix (oregano, sage, thyme, rosemary)
Saute garlic in butter mixed with olive oil, add shrimps, season with salt, sugar, black pepper, and herbs mix, add white wine (I added 2 shots), bring to boil, cook until the shrimps turned vibrant red, squirt lime juice and grate lime zest, serve hot, with steamed rice/potatoes/pasta.
So quick, easy and tasty, I literally sucked everything outta the shrimps' shell, including the head. Oppps.
Ehm, would you like a Fructus Lycii with that?
I wouldn't want a fructus lycii with anything, but wolfberries would be great, thanks.
I bet you might want to order a steaming bowl of Smilax Glabra Roxb Soup too! It helps your body combatting Hong Kong notoriously humid summer.
Those would be great names for anyone's first born.
"Meet Mr. Smilax Roxb"
"The Oscar goes to...Smilax Roxb!!!!"
"The name is Roxb, Smilax Roxb"
Damn. Mochachocolata-Rita sounds so pitifully plain right now.
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