My artichoke risotto topped with goat cheese and Italian parsley.
Here in California, artichoke season is already in full swing. I love to eat them steamed whole, dipping the leaves in butter with a bit of salt and scraping the soft flesh off with my teeth. If you’re a fan of artichokes, you know they have a short season, and I find it necessary to eat copious amounts of them during that time because they just don’t taste as good out of season. And maybe a slight food addiction that I pass as a career choice.
Because I can’t get enough artichokes and I eat them whole, I end up with a lot of leftover artichoke bottoms that are perfectly delicious. Some people like to stuff them and bake the bottoms, but I puree them and use them flavor pasta sauces, soups and this risotto. The puree also freezes well, for those non-artichoke season cravings.
The steps to getting a usable artichoke bottom: peel off the remaining leaves (don't forget to scrape them before tossing!), and you are left with the left photo. Take off that tough part, and you end up with those little fibers in the second photo. Use a spoon to scrape it out, and voila--the artichoke bottom in the last photo!
After the bottoms are cleaned, puree them in a blender with just a little chicken stock to help loosen the mixture up. You are left with this, which looks disgusting but is actually concentrated awesomeness. Trust me.
My artichoke puree. Not the prettiest picture, but sooooooo delicious.
When making risotto, it is important to use short grain rice, and if you can find, arborio rice from Italy, which is specially made for risotto.If you’ve never made risotto before, it is essentially a rice that makes it’s own delicious sauce using the starch in the rice, liquid and lots of slow stirring. A really easy and delicious rice dish that could easily be a main course! And of course, allows me to eat even more artichokes, which is awesome.
One final note before I give you the recipe–this recipe calls for Parmesan and goat cheese, but it is pretty flexible. Leave out the goat cheese if you don’t have it, but if you can, use the Parmesan (or another favorite hard cheese) because it really adds to the flavor. Ricotta could work, pecorino, manchego…either a soft cheese or a really hard one, basically.
My artichoke risotto!
Recipe: Leena’s Artichoke and Goat Cheese Risotto
Summary: Take advantage of artichoke season with this awesome risotto!
Ingredients
- 2 cooked artichoke bottom
- 5 oz arborio or short grain rice
- 3 3/4 cup chicken or veg stock
- 1 wine glass of dry white wine
- 2 tablespoons of chopped yellow onion
- 1/2 tablespoon olive oil
- 2 tablespoons freshly grated Parmesan
- 2 tablespoons goat cheese, crumbled
- 1 tablespoon butter
Instructions
- Puree the artichoke bottoms with 1/4 cup of chicken stock in a blender until you get a thick puree, set aside.
- Place the remaining stock in a pot on the stove and slowly bring to a boil.
- While stock is heating up, melt 1/2 tablespoon of butter and 1/2 tablespoon of olive oil in a large pot over medium low heat. When the fat is heated, add in the onion and cook until translucent, a few minutes. Add in the rice and stir constantly, toasting the rice for 2 minutes.
- Add in the wine and turn the heat up the medium, stirring until all the wine has evaporated. At this point, the stock should be boiling in the other pot.
- Using an 4 oz ladle, pour one ladle of the hot stock into the rice, stirring until almost all the liquid evaporates. Keep adding the liquid in 4 oz increments, stirring until evaporated. By the end of the stock, taste the rice. It should be not too soft, not too hard. Cook longer if it rice is not finished (may need to add more stock).
- Stir the Parmesan and almost all of the goat cheese into the rice (save some goat cheese for garnish). Stir in the artichoke puree, and the remaining 1/2 tablespoon of butter. Season to taste with salt and pepper. Serve garnished with more goat cheese.
Variations
You can use pretty much any kind of stock you like for this, and any kind of white wine, as long as it is dry.
Number of servings (yield): 3
Meal type: dinner
Culinary tradition: Italian
Microformatting by hRecipe.
~LTG!
