Herbed Risotto

[herbed risotto]

Ever since the move to Singapore in October last year, things have been extremely eventful for us. Friends and family visiting, vacations abroad, the holidays… Even though the kitchen has been quite seasoned for day-to-day meals, I haven’t seen myself having extra time for baking cakes and whipping up a special meal from a cookbook, let alone styling and photographing food! Though there was an occasion when I had the inspiration to improvise an herbed risotto recipe I have.

The result is the picture above, which I’ve taken the effort to photograph a blog entry. The only misgiving was that I have procrastinated this post for two months, do forgive me. I’ve had an anonymous reader asking me where I have been and an aunt from London who inquired me of my whereabouts as she has not received any blog updates from me. So I thought I’d better pull my act together and get this post out. Here's the recipe...

Herbed risotto

1 1/2 tablespoons butter
1 small onion, diced
1 cup spinach (you can substitute with another vegetable. I've used pumpkin and it was great!)
3/4 Arborio rice
2 cups hot chicken stock
1 pound mushrooms, sliced
1/2 tablespoon olive oil
1/4 cup heavy cream
1 tablespoon minced fresh rosemary (and, or other herbs)
1 tablespoon grated Parmesan cheese

Melt butter in a large skillet. Sauté onion until fragrant for 1 minute. Add vegetables and sauté for 2-3 minutes until rather tender. Add rice. Cook for 1 minute, stirring constantly. Add stock, salt and pepper. Cook, covered until the rice is tender on the outside and chewy inside. While the rice is cooking, sauté the mushrooms in olive oil. When the rice is done, fold in the mushrooms, cream, herbs and cheese. I garnished mine with toasted black sesame seeds for some visual interestingness!