Daring Cooks-March Challenge-Risotto

The 2010 March Daring Cooks challenge was hosted by Eleanor of MelbournefoodGeek and Jess of Jessthebaker. They chose to challenge Daring Cooks to make risotto. The various components of their challenge recipe are based on input from the Australian Masterchef cookbook and the cookbook Moorish by Greg Malouf.

For this challenge, I have had a bunch of dried mushrooms laying around and decided to put them to good use. I made a basic vegetable stock while adding the dried mushrooms to rehydrate, and then adding this to the Risotto base. Super yummy and fantastic for a rainy night! Nik and I enjoyed this while watching that movie Men Who Stare at Goats (which is really good!)


Vegetable stock:

2 large potatoes, quartered
4-5 smaller carrots or 1 big one (I had small finger-sized ones)
bag of dried mushrooms (I had a wild mix from Whole Foods)
2 small onions
water (I filled up my 3 1/2 QT. pot about 3/4 of the way with water)

I really enjoy Bryanna Clark Grogan's veggie broth (scroll down a little) and just kinda freely added in some of the same ingredients she uses in her dry broth powder to my stock.

Simmer for an hour. I discarded the potato and left everything else in to be added to the Risotto base.

Risotto Base

Ingredients:
2 oz. olive oil
1 small onion, quartered
14 oz. Arborio rice
2 oz. white wine
vegetable stock , simmering 2 pints 1 L

Directions:

1. Heat oil in a pan and add onion. Fry for a few minutes to flavour the oil
2. Add the rice and stir for a few minutes to coat each grain of rice with oil and toast slightly.
3. Add the wine and let it bubble away until evaporated.
4. Add enough stock to cover the rice by a finger’s width (about an inch or two).
5. Cook on medium heat, stirring with a wooden spoon from time to time, until most of the stock has been absorbed.
6. Repeat Step 4 and continue stirring often.

Yum!