Lemony Zucchini Risotto

K came up to visit this weekend. We had an awesome time hanging out at the park all day at a bluegrass festival. We stayed until our ears were full, and then we decided to come home and fill our tummies. I found this online, but it's from Bittman's Food Matters Cookbook.

Makes: 4 servings

Time: 45 to 60 minutes

Risotto can be almost meager or incredibly luxurious; this one manages to be both, as the grated zucchini mostly melts away, leaving behind a creamy richness that doesn’t depend on tons of rice or mounds of cheese. Parboiling the brown rice as directed in Step 1 helps the rice absorb water quickly and evenly.

• Salt
• 1 cup short-grain brown rice
• 2 tablespoons olive oil
• 1 onion, chopped
• Black pepper
• 1⁄2 cup dry white wine or water
• 3 to 5 cups vegetable or chicken stock or water
• 4 small or 2 large zucchini (about 1 1⁄2 pounds), grated
• Grated zest and juice of 1 lemon
• 1⁄2 cup grated Parmesan cheese, optional
• 1 tablespoon butter or additional olive oil, optional
• 1⁄2 cup chopped fresh basil, plus more for garnish, optional

1. Bring a medium pot of water to a boil and salt it. Stir in the brown rice, adjust the heat so that the water bubbles steadily, and cook, without stirring, for 10 to 15 minutes. Drain well.
2. Put the oil in a large, deep skillet over medium heat. When it’s hot, add the onion and cook, stirring occasionally, until it softens, about 5 minutes. Add the rice and cook, stirring occasionally, until it is glossy and coated with oil, just a couple of minutes. Sprinkle with salt and pepper, then add the wine. Stir and let the liquid bubble away.
3. Begin to add the stock, about 1⁄2 cup at a time, stirring after each addition and every minute or so. When the stock is just about evaporated, add more. The mixture should be neither soupy nor dry. Keep the heat medium to medium-high and stir frequently.
4. After about 15 minutes of adding stock, stir in the zucchini and cook, stirring, until it releases its liquid and the mixture again becomes dry. Begin tasting the rice about 5 minutes later; you want it to be tender but with still a tiny bit of crunch. It could take as long as 45 minutes to reach this stage. When it does, stir in the lemon zest and juice, and the Parmesan, butter, and basil if you’re using them. Taste and adjust the seasoning. Serve immediately, garnished with additional basil if you like.

Lemony Zucchini Risotto with Fried Eggs. When the risotto is almost done, put a medium skillet over medium heat for about a minute. Add 1 tablespoon olive oil or butter and swirl it around the pan. When the oil is hot, crack 4 eggs into the skillet. When the whites become opaque, a minute later, turn the heat to low and sprinkle the eggs with salt and pepper. Cook until the yolks are set as you like them and the whites are completely firm; cut through the uncooked parts, if necessary, to encourage the still-liquid white to spread over the surface of the pan. Put 1 fried egg on top of each serving of risotto.

RESULTS: We both thought the flavor of this was spot on. Lemon + basil + Parmesan + shallots = yummy. (We used a shallot instead of an onion because we halved the recipe, and that's what I had on hand anyway.) The egg was also great. However, we found it took considerably longer than 60 minutes to make. After an hour and a half, we decided that it was good enough and ate it a bit closer to crunchy than al dente. From that, we have a couple notes: The first is to really par boil the rice for longer at the beginning (we did use the brown rice. This wouldn't be a problem if you used arborio rice). We only did it for 10 minutes, so try 15 or maybe even 20. The second is that if you do need to use more liquid than the recipe calls for, just use more water, not more stock. It gets more salty the more stock you add, and we found that even with an extra cup of stock (and trust me, I put in more than just one cup of extra liquid) it crossed the line from good salty to too salty. Otherwise, a great recipe! 

Taco seasoning

Plan A was to grill some hamburgers, but the big black rainclouds made us think better. I was out walking Harper before the rain started, and I promise you the temperature dropped 5 degrees in the span of a minute. Anyway, Plan B was then to make tacos, but upon arriving home from the store we realized we forgot taco seasoning (in addition to whole wheat flour and I'm sure a dozen other things that I meant to put on the list but didn't). Like the good husband to a mother-to-be that he is, Chris was all prepared to go back out in the storm to get some, but then, Internet to the rescue! I found the following on allrecipes.com. We think this recipe makes the equivilent of one taco seasoning packet. After you drain the fat from the browned meat and sprinkle this on (start with half and then work up to all of it, just in case it's too spicy), add about 2/3 cup of cold water with a little corn starch (I don't know, somewhere around half a teaspoon to a teaspoon?) dissolved in the water and let the water cook down.

• 1 tablespoon chili powder
• 1/4 teaspoon garlic powder
• 1/4 teaspoon onion powder
• 1/4 teaspoon crushed red pepper flakes (I would ease up on this a bit and only add more if you think you need it)
• 1/4 teaspoon dried oregano
• 1/2 teaspoon paprika
• 1 1/2 teaspoons ground cumin
• 1 teaspoon sea salt
• 1 teaspoon black pepper

Beet Rosti with Rosemary

From How to Cook Everything:

Yield 4 servings

Time 30 minutes

Keep the heat moderate — cooking too quickly will burn the sugary outside of the pancake while leaving the inside raw. And don’t forget to wear an apron when you're grating the beets. 

Ingredients

• 1.5 pounds beets 
• 1 teaspoon coarsely chopped fresh rosemary
• Salt and freshly ground pepper to taste
• 1/2 cup flour
• 2 tablespoons butter
• Minced parsley, a few rosemary leaves, or grates Parmesan cheese for garnish

1. Trim beets, and peel them as you would potatoes; grate them in food processor or by hand. Begin preheating 12-inch nonstick skillet over medium heat.

• 2. Toss grated beets in bowl with rosemary, salt and pepper. Add about half the flour; toss well, add rest of flour, and toss again.
• 3. Put butter in skillet; heat until it begins to turn nut-brown. Scrape beet mixture into skillet, and press with spatula to form a round. With medium to medium-high heat -- the pancake should gently sizzle -- cook, shaking pan occasionally, until bottom of cake is nicely crisp, 8 to 10 minutes. Slide cake onto a plate, top with another plate, invert the two plates, and return cake to pan. Keep cooking, adjusting heat if necessary, until other side is browned, another 10 minutes or so. Garnish, cut into wedges, and serve hot or at room temperature.
• Results:
• Salty, sweet, and buttery, this is basically beet hash browns. It was just a gorgeous treat to make, first of all. I used red and golden beets, so the shredded beets in the glass bowl with little bits of rosemary were just lovely. To make things "easier" on myself, I learned how to use the grater on my food processor. I say "easier" because there was a bit of a learning curve. But once Chris figured it out, it really was very fun -- the food processor makes a great whirring noise--and I didn't have beet juice all over my kitchen.  I love that food processor. 
• Burning the sugars in the beets before the beets are cooked through is a real possibility--I would aim a little lower on the heat (medium or medium low), and only turn it up only if things seem to need a little more oomph. Be patient. If you're the only beet eater in the house, I would say go ahead and make the full recipe--the leftovers, though less crispy, are still pretty tasty, and beets are a great source of vitamins. And cheap, especially now at the farmers market.
• Finally, don't get too hung up on the amounts listed here. The recipe I found online actually called for 2 pounds of beets for 1/2 cup of flour and 2 tsp of rosemary, but I'm pretty sure the recipe in the book said 1.5 pounds of beets for the same amount of flour and half the rosemary (which is what I retyped above)... basically, this can really be to taste as long as you've got enough butter and flour to make the mechanics work. 

Zucchini Ricotta Fritters

Only three posts in July, shameful! And, here's another one for the "to-do" list. I might actually get to this one. :)
http://www.loveandoliveoil.com/2011/08/zucchini-ricotta-fritters.html

I swear I've been cooking, just nothing all that exciting or new. Although I did make a pretty fabulous Beet Rosti this weekend, I'll see if I can find that recipe for you...

Double Nutella Kulfi (basically, Indian-style ice cream)

From this website, sent to me by my friend Aimee. The pictures are helpful.

serves 8, in conical kulfi moulds 9 cm high

Ingredients

• 300 ml of fresh cream to whip
• 1/2 cup of sugar
• 275 ml of evaporated milk (I used full fat, but if you try this with low fat, let me know how it goes)
• 250 gms Nutella (or or taste) plus 4 tbsp melted Nutella in 1 tbsp of hot milk to drizzle

Directions

1. Whip cream and sugar together to stick peaks
2. Stir in Nutella and evaporated milk. You'll lose your peaks and it'll look foamy.
3. Pour into Indian Kulfi molds, yogurt containers, ramekins, or anything else. If you don't use the kulfi molds, put plastic wrap over the containers and press against the cream so you don't get ice crystals.
4. Freeze overnight
5. Before serving, top with 4 Tbsp melted Nutella mixed with hot milk. Toasted hazelnuts are also good.

Results
I made this for my birthday yesterday. I actually halved the recipe (which was difficult considering I was also doing ml to oz conversions--I gave up on trying to figure out how much Nutella to put it), which I decided is more like frozen mousse than ice cream, although it's close enough to ice cream that one wonders why anyone would ever need ice cream. It turned out VERY rich, Chris and I together couldn't finish half a serving. I wonder if a lighter evaporated milk would help, but then I also wonder what that would do to the consistency of the finished product. Let me know if you try it. In the future, I think I'm not going to worry as much as I did about getting the Nutella completely mixed in. It's impossible to do, for one thing. For another, the parts that didn't get mixed in ended up being really delightful crunchy bits in the ice cream. All in all, really easy, really good, and really rich, and no special equipment required.

Cold Corn Soup

From the Washington Post:

This is a distilled flavor of high summer. The coconut milk accentuates the sweetness of the corn.
Serve with salad and a glass of chardonnay. The soup tastes better with a day's refrigeration.

4 servings
Ingredients

• 2 tablespoons sweet butter
• 3 or 4 medium shallots, cut into thin slices
• Pinch curry powder
• Kernels from about 8 ears white corn (4 cups)
• 4 cups low-sodium chicken broth
• 4 whole black peppercorns
• 6 whole coriander seeds
• 3 stems parsley
• 1 cup unsweetened coconut milk, preferably low-fat (may substitute whole milk)
• Salt

Directions:

1. Melt the butter in an uncovered Dutch oven over medium heat. Add the shallots and cook for 3 to 4 minutes, stirring occasionally, until they are softened but but not browned. Add the curry powder and cook for 1 minute, stirring to coat evenly.
2. Add the corn and chicken broth, stirring to combine.
3. Tie the peppercorns, coriander and parsley in a small cheesecloth bundle, then add to the soup. Reduce the heat to low and cook for about 20 minutes, stirring occasionally. Remove from the heat.
4. Stir in the coconut milk. Cover, and let the soup rest for 20 minutes.
5. Discard the cheesecloth bundle.
6. Reserve 1 cup of the soup. Puree the remaining soup in a blender (working in batches) or with an immersion (stick) blender until smooth.
7. Set a strainer over a bowl; strain the pureed soup, gently pressing on any solids to extract as much liquid as possible. Add the reserved 1 cup of unpureed soup to the bowl (for texture); mix well. Season with salt to taste, keeping in mind the soup will be chilled.
8. Cover the bowl with plastic wrap and refrigerate until well chilled before serving.

RESULTS:
This wasn't all that much different from the other cold corn soup that I posted up here a while ago and am too lazy to link to now, but I did really like the combination of coconut, coriander, and ground ginger (which I used because I didn't remember that I had curry powder until just typing this sentence now...). I thought the whole cheesecloth thing was unnecessarily fussy, so I just tossed the spices in there and figured, if I get a whole peppercorn, so be it.

Miso and citrus dressing

Something to do to use that miso that's sitting in my fridge.

Update: I think this has potential. The proportions need to be tweaked to get them right. The one I made was way heavy on the lemon juice. I think it could have also benefited from some secondary flavors. Soy sauce? Sesame oil? Hmmmm....