Chorizo, Cauliflower and Porcini Risotto| You've Got Meal!

Cooking rice is something that doesn’t happen nearly enough in our kitchen, so, when we had to plan a meal for a couple of guests coming over, this risotto dish came to mind. Maybe I was influenced by the fact that we had all in the ingredients in our pantry or fridge, but who knows?

So, a nice piece of spicy chorizo sausage, about 200 grams, cut into slices, 

200 grams of cauliflower florets, 

300 grams of porcini , cut into big chunks (that’s the way I like them, feel free to change it), 

1 large onion diced, 

3 cloves of garlic, diced, 

about 220-250 grams of rice (use a risotto appropriate variety), 

100 grams of a good quality dry white wine, 

400 ml of vegetable or chicken stock, 

100 grams of butter and 

your heart’s desire of parmesan, salt, pepper and olive oil.

 Start of by cooking the onion and garlic on high heat for a couple of minutes, until they start softening. Add the meat and cook it for another 3-4 minutes, after which add the mushrooms and give those another 4 minutes, making sure that they are coated in the chorizo infused oil in the pan. Throw in the cauliflower and cook that for another 3-5 minutes. Add the rice, salt and pepper and cook it without liquid for 2 minutes, constantly stirring so that it mixes with the rest of the ingredients. Add the wine and reduce it on high heat down to about a third. Add the stock, reduce heat to medium-low and cook until the liquid has reduced enough and the rice has a creamy rich consistency. If necessary, add more stock.

Right at the end, put in the butter and whisk it in so that it melts and mixes in uniformly. Remove from heat and add the grated parmesan, whatever quantity you feel like and some parsley (optional, our guests didn’t need it). If you feel that the chorizo doesn’t hold the spicy kick you need in this risotto, add a diced red (for visual purposes) chili with the onion and garlic.

 To serve as a salad for this risotto, I opted for a very nice lemony, crunchy blistered  broccoli. I already explained how to make that in this recipe, the difference in this instance being that I didn’t add garlic but only lemon, some more olive oil, salt, pepper, chili and some tomato tiny cubes. If you have some nice salad leaves (some lola rosa works nice for taste and it brings a nice visual upgrade) you can mix them in for a more salad-ish feel to this broccoli.

  

Enjoy,

Chicken with Porcini Mushroom

For me, when someone says porcini, I get a tingling in my fingers. These are, in my humble opinion, the best mushrooms you can get or forage (let’s leave the wonderful truffles out of this, shall we? They might be mushrooms as a species, but you can’t make a stew out of them). And, for me, porcini have a different background, as they were introduced to me by the one of the most incredible people in the world, meaning my grandmother. She used to pick them herself in the forest or buy them from other foragers and I loved every tiny bit of that mushroom, any way she would cook it for me: in a stew, with different meats, grilled, boiled, didn’t matter. She was also very picky with her mushrooms: she only used young, fresh porcini, that had no sign of disease or bruising and she didn’t hesitate to throw any mushroom that wasn’t up to some very high standard. Oh, and another thing, she only eats 2 kind of mushrooms: porcini and honey fungus. Anything else, she threw away…  Honestly, nothing else. Bit weird, but she still is amazing and a great inspiration for me. 

So, when I went to visit her a couple of weeks ago, she gave me half a kilo of porcini that she pre-boiled and froze for me. What can I say, I AM her favorite grandson. So, with the mushrooms and my grandmother in mind, I decided to make a dish using the beautiful porcini. Now, chicken wasn’t a choice because I just love it, this recipe works great with some game poultry, quail or pheasant, but chicken breast is plain enough to absorb any spices you throw at it and it doesn’t outshine the porcini, so it’s a viable solution for this dish.

So, 500 grams of boiled porcini means that you can use about 300 grams of fresh ones or about 75-100 grams of dried mushrooms. When using the pre-boiled ones the advantage is that you don’t  have to cook it very long, but with the fresh ones, you get a bit more flavor. 

The meat: 1 free-range (special thanks have to go to my mother for this one) chicken breast, deboned. 

Also: 

2 tbs. of chopped fresh sage, 

a red onion, diced, 

3-4 crushed garlic cloves, 

a spicy chili, 

ground fennel seeds and cloves, 

2 bay leaves, 

Greek yoghurt, 

olive oil, 

salt and pepper, 

some rose wine (go Provence here, the Bordeaux style ones can prove to be a bit too strong for this kind of meat. If using game poultry, replace with red) 

(optional) some turmeric. 

Start of by heating up 3 tbs of olive oil in a heavy base pan, add the sage and cook it for 30 seconds, enough to create a nice and crispy outcome. Add in the chicken, cut however you want, and cook it for 5 minutes, coating it constantly with the sage. Next add the onion, garlic and chili and cook for another 3-4 minutes, after which add the boiled mushrooms, also diced. Add in the spices. Mix everything together and cook for 2 minutes, the add about 1 glass of wine. Bring to a boil on high heat, then reduce to a medium low and let it simmer until the liquid is reduce to half. In the end, add a couple of tbs. of Greek yoghurt and, optional, you can chop some parsley on the dish. Plate it, pour yourself some more of the wine and raise the glass for grandmothers everywhere, be they picky about their mushrooms or not.

Enjoy,

PS:  if using game poultry, make sure to lightly coat the meat in some flour before cooking it. This will create a nice caramelized exterior, as well help the sauce thicken.