Category: Cooking

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Parmesan Chicken Risotto Recipe

Parmesan Chicken Risotto Recipe – Elevated Comfort Food

As everyone attempts to sharpen their kitchen skills with the extra free time we have these days, how do you decide between learning a more involved impressive recipe or sticking to comfort food? The perfect in-between recipe is Risotto: a cheesy, creamy, tender-as-pasta rice dish that’s fancy enough to impress your toughest critics (whether that be a picky eater or a culinary expert.) It isn’t too difficult, but it does take a bit of time, so it’s perfect for weekends with nowhere to go (like the many no-where-to-go weekends we’ve all had lately.)

This recipe is a conglomeration of a few recipes I’ve used over the years, namely this and this.

Here it is!

Chicken Parmesan Risotto (serves 4)

Ingredients

  • 1 lb Chicken
  • Salt and Pepper
  • 6-8 cups chicken stock
  • 5 tbsp olive oil
  • 1/2 cup finely chopped shallots (about 2)
  • 1 cup Arborio rice
  • 1/2 cup dry white wine
  • 4-6 tbsp unsalted butter
  • 1/2 cup parmesan cheese (but really just measure with your heart)
  • 1/4 cup fresh parsley

Directions

  1. Bring chicken broth to a simmer in a medium saucepan.
  2. Cut chicken into 1” cubes. Heat 2 tbsp of olive oil over medium heat. Add the chicken and season with salt and pepper. Cook until the chicken is just done, 3-4 minutes. Set aside.
  3. Heat remaining olive oil in a deep saucepan over medium heat. Add shallots to oil, and cook, stirring, until translucent. 
  4. Add rice, and cook, stirring until rice begins to make a clicking sound like glass beads, 3-4 minutes.
  5. Add wine to rice mixture. Cook, stirring until wine is absorbed by rice. 
  6. Using a ladle, add 3/4 cup hot stock to rice. Using a wooden spoon, stir rice constantly, at a moderate speed. 
  7. When rice mixture is just thick enough to leave a clear wake behind the spoon, add another 3/4 cup stock.
  8. Continue adding stock 3/4 cup at a time and stirring constantly until rice is mostly translucent but still opaque in the center. Rice should be al dente but not crunchy. The final mixture should be thick enough that grains of rice are suspended in liquid the consistency of heavy cream.
  9. Remove from heat. Stir in butter, parmesan cheese, and parsley; season with salt and pepper. Stir in chicken. Serve immediately, with extra parmesan and parsley for topping.

 

If you’re looking for side dishes to pair with this Risotto, here are a couple of dishes I love to make with Risotto, with a schedule of how to time all of these dishes to be ready at the right time. 

Bacon-Wrapped Asparagus

https://www.delish.com/cooking/recipe-ideas/recipes/a52754/bacon-asparagus-dippers-recipe/ 

Garlic Mozzarella Bombs

https://rasamalaysia.com/garlic-herb-cheese-bombs/ 

Tip: If you’re feeling fancy, use fresh mozzarella inside. If you’re feeling thrifty, use cut up mozzarella sticks!

Cooking Schedule

6:05 Start cooking chicken

6:10 Start simmer stock – Preheat oven

6:10 Start oil

6:20 Start adding stock

6:25-30 Put in Asparagus

6:45 Put in Rolls

6:50 Stir in Butter, Parsley, Salt, Pepper. Pull out some for Mia. Stir in Parmesan

6:55 Pull out Asparagus and Rolls

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Carbonara For One: More Than a Recipe

carbonara
Why Carbonara?

Carbonara is my love language. It is not only my favorite food, but also my preferred way to offer care and comfort to myself and my loved ones. I prepare carbonara at least once per week, sometimes more if I am feeling particularly tender, hungry, or cozy. I often make single servings for myself after long days, or even for a late breakfast, and I have continued to hone my process over several years. At this point it feels more like a dance than a recipe, requiring fluidity, attention, and flexibility.

It goes without saying that I did not create any part of this dish, and that I’m sure there are many Italians that could cook circles around me. What I bring to this recipe is a pure reverence and devotion to the dish, and an utter delight each time I make it. If you take anything from this post, I hope it is not a perfect bowl of pasta, but a desire to find your own sacred foods and cultivate a deep appreciation for the ritual of making them.

Bon Appetit!

Ingredients:
  • 3 eggs, separated (fresh, free range ideally – the quality of the eggs really matter in this recipe, low quality yields flavorless pasta)
  • 3-4 oz. of guanciale/uncured bacon/pancetta
  • Generous handful of spaghetti or bucatini
  • Hunk of good Parmesan (you can use Pecorino Romano if you like, not pre-shredded)
  • Heaps of freshly ground black pepper
  • Kosher salt
  • Optional: scallions/chives/parsley for garnish
Method:
  1. Chop or cut pork into small bits.
  2. Sauté pork in a non-stick pan over low-medium heat.
  3. Start to boil pasta water in a separate saucepan.
  4. When pork is starting to crisp, about 5 minutes into cooking, reduce heat to low and allow it to fully cook over low heat in the rendered fat.
  5. Once water boils generously salt pasta water and add pasta, cooking 2 minutes short of al dente
  6. While the pork and pasta are cooking you will prepare the sauce. In a bowl (I use the bowl I am going to eat out of) separate three eggs. You do not need egg whites for this recipe, but I will add a teaspoon of the whites to the yolks to give the sauce a little more fluidity. Mix egg yolks until very well blended.
  7. Grate parmesan into the egg mixture. I use at least ½ cup, it should form a texture like a paste. Add pinch of salt and generous amount of cracked pepper to the egg and cheese mixture.
  8. When pasta is close to al dente scoop a splash of pasta water into the egg mixture. This tempers the eggs and begins to melt the shredded cheese. The texture should thin a bit, but not be watery. Be careful not to overdo it!
  9. Increase heat on pork to med-high to bring the pan temperature back up.
  10. Using tongs transfer pasta directly from the pasta water to the pan with the pork with ¼ cup of pasta water, moving quickly. DO NOT DRAIN OR RINSE YOUR PASTA. Reserve the rest of the pasta water.
  11. Continually stir the pasta and pork as the liquid cooks off and pasta water reduces some. The pasta should be lubricated, not dry, with the fat and pasta water beginning to stick to the pasta. Add more pasta water if you need to during this step as it cooks off.
  12. Pull off heat and allow pasta to cool slightly.
  13. Slowly start to pour egg and cheese mixture into the pan with the pasta, stirring continually as you pour. If the sauce seems too thick after adding the egg mixture you can add more pasta water, one tablespoon at a time. The sauce should be glossy and cling to the noodles, not goopy or thin.
  14. Finish in the bowl with fresh Parmesan, more cracked black pepper, and garnish if you choose to.
  15. Eat immediately! Carbonara is best served hot and eaten quickly after.

Notes:

This recipe requires you to multitask. Time is of the essence when you make carbonara! It is crucial that you do not overcook the pasta, and it all comes together quite quickly. It helps to prep your mise en place before you begin and have everything close to the stove where you are cooking for easy access.

Tongs are a huge help with this recipe. You can use them to cook the pork and the pasta, and they make it easy to transfer the pasta without draining.

If you’re not a pork eater, you can substitute mushrooms or another hearty vegetable in place of the meat. Add a tiny bit of soy sauce or another umami flavor to the vegetables for the salty, meaty flavor you would be skipping.

Salt at each stage. You need to add it to the pasta water and a pinch to the egg mixture or the dish will lack complex flavor, but it is easy to over salt so be mindful of that!

Do not put cream or milk in this dish. Pasta water works magic here, it’s just not necessary, and it will result in a pasta that is too rich and heavy. Or peas, because frozen peas do not add anything to the flavor or texture of this dish.

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The Ideal Autumn Meal: Tamales With a Side of Grey Goo

Ah, it’s that time of the year. The leaves are turning red, the air is starting to cool, the sun is starting to set earlier. Autumn fast approaches, and with it, season specific food. Thats right, it’s tamale time!

Now, if your’e anything like me, then you love tamales. And who doesn’t love a variety of meats and spices wrapped in maze, covered in a corn husk and steamed to perfection? I know a lot about tamales, how to eat them, how to serve them, how to enjoy them, but not how to make them. Fortunately, I’m on the internet.

-10 hours later-

Alright, now I know more about tamales then I’ll ever need to know, and now I am going to make that YOUR problem. Earlier I said “if your’e anything like me, then you love tamales”, but don’t fool yourself. You are nothing like me. For you see, I really love tamales.

Between my tamale obsession and my laziness, I simply can’t make enough tamales by hand to keep me satisfied. So I think it’s time I get a helping hand. Or a lot of helping hands. Like, hundreds of tiny helping hands. And before you ask, I’m not talking about using child labor in a sweatshop next to my storage unit, I’m talking about nanobots! The sweatshop is unrelated, just forget I brought it up.

If you clicked on this thinking it would be a tutorial on how to make tamales, but after seeing that last paragraph are starting to second guess yourself, don’t worry, this is a tamale tutorial. But not your run of the mill tamale tutorial, no, I’m going to teach you how to make tamales like the Demiurge you were always meant to be.

Step 1: making the nanobots

Making nanobots is one of those fun activities you do in an afternoon, ideally with your father or son, depending on what roll you are. Go into the garage and pull out your Kirkland Signature matter fabricator. Program it to make a robot that will make a smaller robot that will make a smaller robot and have this continue until a small robot, approximately the size of a needle, produces a nanobot half the size of a blood cell. Now that that is done, we have just completed the toughest step.

Step 2: from 1 to 2 to goo!

Program that nanobot with 3 instructions. 1, make 4 copies of yourself using any non-tamale matter. 2, download the 3 preprogrammed instructions into the newly fabricated nanobots. 3, convert all non-nanobot matter into tamales. Now you just sit back, relax, and wait as those piles of corn and meat and whatever else magically assembles into tamales before your eyes.

Step 3: realize you made a mistake.

So… we forgot to program the nanobots not to turn ourselves into tamales. And I guess that ought to extend to our friends and family too. But not the neighbor’s dog. By this point, poor snuffles has already had his matter converted into tamale ingredients. Assuming that the nanobots are still on the tamales, lets just avoid eating that batch for now. Besides, we have more important things to do…

Step 4: get out of town!

Because you were so eager to consume delicious tamales, you set the duplication to 4, so we have very little time left. At this point, just go to NASA or SpaceX and steal yourself a rocket. That’s right, we’re leaving Earth. Assuming the nanobots won’t be able to leave Earth on their own, and we know we didn’t program them to be aware enough to realize the entire universe is made out of matter, we should be able to safely establish the first Mars tamale colony! You did follow the instructions, right?

Step 5: take one last look.

Step 6: enough looking, get on the rocket!

Step 7: lift off

By this point, you should be asking yourself, was it worth it? The answer is, yes. Of course it was worth it. But this is also your fault and you should be ashamed. I mean, look at what you did! This, this is Earth right now! This is all your fault. What were you thinking? What, that you would just look up an article online about making tamales, following along without first reading through the entire article? THERE WEREN’T EVEN INGREDIENTS LISTED!

Step 8: remorse

You forgot to grab cattle. Meat doesn’t grow in the ground, corn does. This is your fault, not mine. And you didn’t grab corn seeds. No, Mars dirt can’t be used to make tamales. You don’t even have water to steam your non-tamale dirt tamales. This is why we can’t have nice things, because of people like you.

 

I hope you found this tamale tutorial useful! Next week, throwing your cat in a nuclear reactor. Federal authorities call it a serious offense and a radiological hazard, but you kids will absolutely love having a glow-in-the-dark kitty cat!

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Quick, Organic Mediterranean Cuisine

By: Summer Burlage

This Mediterranean style meal is packed with veggies, protein and good oils. The recipe features all organic ingredients such as pasta, fresh tomatoes, sun-dried tomatoes, fresh basil, spinach, garlic and olive oil. This quick and easy dinner will become a family favorite!

Takes only 30 minutes to make!

INSTRUCTIONS:

  1. Add chopped sun-dried tomatoes and 2 T. of oil drained from sun-dried tomatoes, to a large skillet on, medium-low heat.
  2. Add chopped chicken (I used boneless skinless chicken breasts).
  3. Cook on medium heat until there is no more pink in the chicken – should take about 5 minutes.
  4. Add chopped tomatoes, chopped fresh basil leaves, fresh spinach, and minced garlic to the large skillet. Cook on medium- low heat for about 3-5 minutes until spinach wilts. Remove from heat.
  5. Drizzle olive oil. 
  6. Taste, and add salt as needed. Cover with lid and let veggies simmer.
  7. Cook pasta according to the package instructions.
  8. Drain pasta. Add cooked and drained pasta to the skillet with chicken and veggies. *or serve separately if preferred 
  9. Serve and enjoy!