Mushroom Risotto

Exotic Mushrooms

shimeji

Shiitake
Enokitake

I had this risotto planned for a while, and whena fellow North East Blogger - Mince and Skirlie wrote about his recipe, I decided it was time to give it a try. I would have normally used just plain white mushrooms mixed with chestnut mushrooms, but when I saw that Sainsburys had an exotic mushroom pack it sealed the deal. The only problem being, the pack didn't tell me what they were. I think through using google I have identified them but I could be totally wrong, if anyone knows and I need corrected feel free to do so!

Recipe - served 2 - and the portions were pretty big and filling.

2 small onions finely chopped

150g risotto rice

3 small knobs of butter

olive oil

white wine

vegetable stock - but chicken would work

Parmesan

parsley

mixed mushrooms - your choice

I started by frying the onion in butter and oil, then adding the risotto rice, the skill being to coat the rice and to cook a little before adding any liquid - toasting the rice. I then splashed in a good glass of wine, maybe more but who is counting? I let this cook till it had boiled dry or there abouts, giving it a stir now and then.

Then it was time to get down to the main event, adding the stock which I had in another pan at a slow boil, ladle at a time, stirring until it had all been absorbed before adding another ladle.

The experts reckon a proper risotto takes 18 minutes to make, I didn't time it, so I couldn't tell you.

Will this was going on I fried the mushrooms in a separate pan with butter and oil, I suppose I could have added them in with the risotto at the beginning but I thought they might break up and I really want to keep the lovely different shapes of them all.

Once I had added all the vegetable stock to the rice mixture, and the rice was cooked but still had bite - al dente - like pasta; I took it off the heat, added another knob of butter some Parmesan cheese and gave it a good stir - this stage is called Mantecatura.

When I dished it up, I simply served the mushrooms on top with a sprinkle of parsley and more Parmesan. The parsley made a big impact. Delicious, well I thought so - Richard didn't like the exotic mushrooms. You win some, you lose some!

Markies - dine for a tenner - Steak and chips

I think most people know about the Marks and Spencers deal that happens quite frequently now, buy 1 main course, 1 side dish, 1 dessert and a drink for a tenner - it makes for quite a good meal and depending on what main you pick and drink it can be great value for money.

Last we Richard picked up the steak, chunky chips, vanilla cheese cake and a bottle of wine, quite a bag full for a ten quid.

We started with some scallops and pea puree that were left over from Friday night. Then I grilled the steaks stuck the chips in the oven and fried some mushrooms and onions to accompany them. Richard likes a sauce to go with it, but his favourite is adding markies cracked black pepper cream cheese to the mushrooms and onions to make a kind of sauce. I tried to be artistic with the chips and copy what the restaurants do - what we call jenga chips but they weren't all regulation sized and it didn't work quite as I hoped!

To finish we had the cheese cake which was very nice, not to sweet and a good size portion. All in all not bad for roughly 5 quid a head.

Cheese - it makes everything better

Sometimes life deals you a shit hand but you have to dust yourself down, put a smile on your face and move on. Nothing helps you feel better than dipping things in hot creamy cheese! (reading that back sounds a bit wrong!) Richard and I needed some comfort food after a couple of rough weeks and a baked camembert with some roast potatoes, mushrooms and crusty bread to dip in was just what the doctor ordered.

Not exactly rocket science, yet this meal seems to look and sound a lot more lavish than it is, and with a couple of bottles of wine to accompany it, it was a real treat.

I simply cut a few slits in the top of the cheese, inserted some slice of garlic, splashed with wine white - if I had thyme I would have added that - and stuck it in the oven. Potatoes and mushrooms where drizzled with oil and seasoned and joined the cheese to roast.

I think ten minutes past of complete silence as Richard and I dipped and chewed, and finally smiled for what seemed like a long time!

Salmon and my very own spinach

I decided it was time to harvest some of our home grown spinach and see if it actually tasted nice! I threw this together and would hardly call it a recipe.

Basically it was a salmon fillet steamed in a foil parcel with spinach, mushrooms,tomatoes, basil, garlic and some white wine. In the oven cooked till done.

Served with rocket and some balsamic, it won't win any awards but it was alright.

and yes the spinach was lovely - bonus!

Fillet Steaks - with mushrooms and onions in a pepper sauce

I picked up these fillets steaks from Andrew Gordons, they were delicious, served just simply with mushrooms and onions fried with some markies cream cheese with black pepper corns to make some sort of sauce - I could eat this any time any day.

Sunday 21st March 2010 - Steak

Being down in the town centre on Saturday afternoon we stumbled on what we thought was a new butchers, when we asked how long he’d been there he replied “2 years!” oh well not that new, but new to us!

We bought 2 lovely sirloin steaks which we had planned to have on Saturday night but you have already read what delights I had instead, Richard wasn’t much better he had a bag of nuts!




So having to use them up it turned into Sunday nights dinner! I simply cooked them on the griddle pan, and accompanied them with some onions and mushrooms fried with some low fat cheese and peppercorns, which I bashed up myself in the pestle and mortar. I think I over did it on the peppercorns my nose was running by the end of eating it, but at least it cleaned out the old sinuses!