Chicken risotto with fresh basil and Parmesan

Thanks to one Estonian cooking forum I finally know what risotto is. Many people - including myself - tend to call any kind of rice dish “risotto” (even if you have boiled the rice beforehand in the water, drained it and afterwords mixed it with some cooked meat and vegetables) which is why I am glad to know now, that there are only a certain types of rice you can use and certain rules you have to follow, if you want your dish to be called risotto.

Rice forms an important part of the diet of a great many people worldwide. According to Wikipedia , rice is second-most consumed cereal grain and provides more than one fifth of the calories consumed worldwide by humans. There are more than 8000 different types of rice - can you believe it? Only a few years ago I only know two types of rice - white and brown. Now I know a few more, but still - I could not have imagined that there can be so many different types of it!

For risotto, the most common types of rice to use are Arborio (in the picture) or Carnaroli - rice types high in starch content, which is released gradually as you stir in hot stock, resulting in the creamy texture that, frankly, is the whole point of making risotto. You will not get that result with regular white rice. You’ll have a flavored rice dish that may be delicious, but it will not be a creamy risotto. So there.

After locating a few ingredients in my kitchen, I decided to go for this recipe, as I had ALL the ingredients it called for (it does not happen very often). Serves four:

2 tbsp olive oil

1 small onion, chopped

250 g Arborio rice

350 ml chicken stock 

150 ml white wine

150 g peas

150 g boiled and chopped chicken fillet

handful of fresh basil leaves

150 ml grated Parmesan

salt and pepper to taste

 

# Heat olive oil in a medium, non-stick saucepan over medium heat. Add onion; cook and stir for 5 minutes, until onion is translucent. Turn heat at low.

# Add rice; stir, coating rice with olive oil and onions.

# Pour in broth and wine. Simmer covered until stock is absorbed, about 20 minutes. Stir while simmering. Make sure you simmer at low heat - otherwise the liquid will evaporate too quickly and rice will not cook thoroughly (you end up adding more and more liquid).

# When stock is absorbed, stir in peas, chicken, basil and Parmesan cheese. Season with salt and pepper to taste. Serve immediately.

Make sure you use fresh basil as it plays a key role in flavoring and coloring this dish. Dried basil won’t give you the best result!

And how did it taste? Honestly, for me it was a bit dry. I was expecting something more creamy and moist, but as I later on discovered - there was only me to blame, not the recipe. You see, I cooked the rice in the broth at pretty high heat (I was hungry  and wanted the dish to be ready sooner) and therefore most of the broth evaporated and I ended up with this not very creamy result…So next time I’ll be smarter.

I prepared it for 4 servings and as there is only 2 of us, the next evening J decided to give this risotto a nice makeover. What he did was the following:

Heated about 200 ml cream and 50 ml white wine in a saucepan and added about 8-9 cherry tomatoes. Seasoned the cream with some hot curry powder, nutmeg and ground paprika. Also sprinkled it over with a handful of love, as he told me.

He poured the hot sauce over the risotto, simmered and stirred it for a couple of minutes and served.

I don’t know weather it was love or the curry, but it did taste better than the dish we had the day before. I guess you can’t call it a risotto anymore, but…a tasty rice dish it was!

Creamy baked salmon

Salmon is good, right? Pretty, tasty and healthy. I especially love it when they have some campaigns at the store and they sell salmon with the tiniest price ever. I haven’t had the courage yet to go and buy the cheaper salmon in the market, as…it seems so unhygienic. Let’s face it - if you see the lady selling the fish in the market picking up garbage from the ground and a few seconds later going through the fish pile with her dirty hands, you don’t feel like buying the fish. At least in the store you don’t see any of that - you’ll get a clean and nice fish in a package. No germs. And don’t you dare break my illusions that before reaching the fish counters at the store, there might still be a possibility that the fish goes through oh-how-very-messy-and-dirty production process.

So, anyway. I bought salmon lately. More than once actually and prepared the same dish every time. It was just so good! I have baked salmon in the oven before, you know, with some lemon juice, salt, pepper and butter, but often the salmon comes out dry. With this creamy topping you won’t have this kind of a problem and that is why I like it that much. I got the idea from here, and combined the following cream topping (serves two):

250 - 300 g salmon pieces (my pieces were about 5×6 cm)

2 tbsp sour cream

2 tbsp cream cheese

1 tbsp mayonnaise

2 tsp lemon juice

1 tsp dill

1 crushed garlic glove

some salt, pepper, ground paprika

some slices of tomato, optional

 

# Wash salmon and pat dry.  Arrange salmon fillets, skin side down, in a single layer on a foiled pan.

# In a bowl, mix together sour cream, mayonnaise, lemon juice, dill, cream cheese and garlic until smooth. Season with salt and pepper. Spread over fish and sprinkle lightly with paprika.

# Bake at 200 degrees C, uncovered, approximately 20 minutes (depending on how thick the salmon is). Remember the salmon continues to cook after it is removed from the heat source, so if you think that the salmon is almost ready and would need a few more minutes, then it IS ready and you should remove it from the oven.

Serve immediately. I offered rice as a side dish, but some steamed or boiled veggies would be good as well I guess. As you can see from the pictures, I tried two kinds of rice - the regular jasmine rice and brown rice with bell pepper and carrots (I boiled the rice in one saucepan and vegetable cubes in another saucepan; when rice was cooked and vegetables tender, I mixed them together).

This easy-to-make salmon comes out very rich and juicy. J voted it as the top-fish-dish. I did too.

Only one thing to complain about - the presentation. I just think that those fish pieces look so miserable on the plate…but at least the presentation does not have an effect on the taste. Still, if you like eating with your eyes, as I do, then you can’t be 100% satisfied. So I keep on trying to get it right. And I don’t mind trying actually, because it tastes oh so good

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Actually, I remembered now that one time I used a cream cheese flavoured with garlic and herbs and thus omitted the extra garlic glove. Tasted the same - and the herbs actually gave the cream a very nice kick. So, feel free to add some extra herbs to the cream, it should only improve the taste.

Eating sushi according to the rules

The pictures relieve that sushi has been prepared in my kitchen again. This time I was more in the “taking photos” team, while my good friend Becca prepared most of the sushi. And she did great, as you can see from the pictures!

Sometime in between preparing and enjoying the sushi rolls I started to think about the history and roots of sushi and I came to an understanding, that I know only a little. Only that sushi is delicious, probably originates from Japan, is eaten with sticks and can be accompanied by sake. I figured it is time to find out if my assumptios are correct. And I did. Lucky me that I hadn’t start small talk about the rules and manners of eating sushi, cause based on the knowledge mentioned above, I would’ve seemed very dumb.

Firstly, I discovered that sushi originates from China, where what was to become sushi was first mentioned in the second century A.D. Originally, sushi was a way of preserving food. Fish was placed in rice and allowed to ferment, which allowed an individual to keep the fish edible for some time. The fish was eaten when needed and the rice was thrown away (what a waste!!).

The method spread throughout China and six centuries later made its way to Japan. The Japanese, however, took the concept further and began to eat the rice with the fish. Very smart of them, I would say.

The kind of sushi we eat today “developed” in the early 19th century by Hanaya Yohei who placed a piece of fresh fish on top of an oblong shaped piece of seasoned rice. Today, we call this style nigiri sushi. Sushi was served as a quick snack from sushi stalls on the street. It became wildly popular. After World War Two, the sushi stalls were shut down and moved indoors, to more sanitary conditions.

Sushifaq also tells me that not long ago, a sushi chef (itamae) had to undergo ten years of training before working in a restaurant. Today, demand for sushi chefs is so high that many start work after only two years of training. I wonder if the quality of sushi has therefore gone down? I don’t know.

Apparently there are many rules you should follow if you want to have a perfect sushi experience, such as:

> Don’t put wasabi directly in the soy sauce. Nigiri-sushi comes with wasabi placed under the fish by the itamae, and reflects what he feels is the proper balance of wasabi to fish. In case you like a little more, sneak some separately on the fish or with it.

> Pick up the nigiri-sushi and dip the fish into your soy sauce, not the rice (which will soak up too much soy sauce). The rice is like a sponge, and too much soy sauce will overpower the taste of the food. It could also lead to the rice falling into the soy sauce and making soup - a mess in one word.

> Technically you shouldn’t drink sake with sushi (or rice in general), only with sashimi or before or after the meal. It is felt that since they are both rice based, they do not complement each other and therefore should not be consumed together. Its like having sandwhich with bread. Green tea is a great option with sushi or sashimi.

> If you are having soup and are not given a spoon for your soup, do not ask for one. You are expected to pick up your bowl to drink the soup, using your chopsticks to direct the solid pieces to your mouth. And slurping is fine!

The list of rules continues. You can have a look at sushifaq. I feel much more knowledgeable now. Still, I wonder if everyone follow those rules? And can they be punished if they are not? After all, the most important thing is to enjoy the dish not to worry if you are doing everything according to the rules…right?

Chicken and pineapple curry

I wanted to try what comes out, if you put together coconut milk, pineapple, celery, bell pepper and potato and season them with curry powder and ground cumin. It turned out to be a kind of a mild curry (not as spicy as this one) and I loved it. You are of course welcome to spice it up with some Cayenne pepper and extra curry powder.

1 smaller onion

100 g pineapple chunks

1 celery stalk, chopped

1 red bell pepper, chopped

1 carrot, julienned

2 potatoes, peeled and chopped

1 crushed garlic glove

200 ml coconut milk

125 ml heavy cream

1 tsp ground cumin

3 tbsp curry powder (e.g. 1 tbsp hot and 2 tbsp mild curry powder)

1 tsp cinnamon

1 tsp ginger

2 bay leaves

200 g chopped chicken fillet

salt and pepper

olive oil

 

# First of all chop all the vegetables and chicken, set aside.

# Mix seasonings and pour into a hot saucepan. Toast for a few minutes and add oil, onion, garlic and bay leaves. Stir and turn the heat lower.

# Add celery, carrot, bell pepper and potatoes and continue to simmer for 3-4 minutes.

# Pour the mix over with coconut milk and cream and stir thoroughly, to distribute spices evenly.

# Fry chopped chicken in a frying pan until not pink and add to curry sauce. Continue to simmer for about 20 minutes (stir once in a while).

# When vegetables are soft, add pineapple into the sauce, simmer for another few minutes and remove from heat. Season with salt and pepper, if needed.

# Serve with rice and naan bread.

Since I have come up with this ecipe myself, I can’t say it is authentic Indian food, but it has a pleasant taste and you can adjust the taste if you add more/less spices. If you don’t like sweet curries, I suggest omitting pineapple chunks.

Sweet and sour pork

If you have some extra time and a lot of saucepans at your disposal, then prepare this sweet and sour pork for dinner. It is pretty time consuming - for a second I already though why on earth I just didn’t buy the sauce mix from the supermarket - but at the end I was pretty satisfied, cause it turned out very well. You can find many different recipes in the Internet, I used this one as a basis and highly recommend it, as the dish comes out just as you were in a Chinese restaurant. You’ll get three portions from the following ingredients:

400 g boneless pork loins

1 tsp salt

1 tsp sugar

2 tbsp soy sauce

1 egg white

olive oil

2 tbsp cornstarch

 

# Place cubed pork in a medium bowl. 

# Mix salt, sugar, soy sauce and lightly beaten egg white and pour over pork. Cover, and place in the refrigerator for at least 1 hour.

# Heat oil in a large saucepan. Coat the pork with cornstarch (to coat evenly, it might be easier to stick the cornstarch in a bag and add the pork, close the top and shake it around) and fry about 10 minutes, until evenly browned. Drain on paper towels.  

olive oil

1 celery stalk, chopped

1 green bell pepper, chopped

1/2 onion, chopped

1 carrot, julienned

sugar and salt 

 

# Heat oil in a wok or a saucepan over medium heat. Stir in the celery, bell pepper, and onion, season with salt and sugar.

# Cook until tender. Remove from heat, and set aside.

150 ml water

1 tsp salt

3 tbsp sugar

50 ml cider vinegar

2 tbsp ketchup

1 tbsp soy sauce

125 g pineapple chunks (canned, undrained)

1 tbsp cornstarch

 

# Mix six first ingredients in a large saucepan and bring to boil.

# Add corntstarch and continue simmering until sauce thickens. 

# Stir in pineapple chunks with juice, simmer for another few minutes and finally add cooked pork and vegetables.

# Serve immediately (in case you prepare it too early, you’ll probably end up eating it alone in the kitchen before the dinner, because it smells so good) with rice.

You can substitute pork with chicken fillet - should turn out just as good. Leftovers (in case you’ll have any) reheat fine too.

17.04.08: Today I prepared the same dish and followed the recipe as it stands and I must say the dish came out a bit salty. I was pretty disappointed….but I guess it depends on what kind of soy sauce you are using - the first time I had a bottle of “light soy sauce” which probably wasn’t that salty as the one I used today (and I should have noticed it myself, when the sign in the bottle said something like “supreme dark” sauce…). So, I have made a correction in the recipe and deleted the salt in the marinade - after all, it is always easier to add it later on than to take it back…