risotto.alla.zucca

September 26th, 2009

I know there is no autumn in Indonesia, but it is my favourite season and it is coming and I am missing it…so I made this risotto that reminded me of autumn colours. Luckily I could find pumpkin here and also found the red cabbage. Love the colour combination of orange risotto and red-purplish cabbage stew and dark green-brownish colour of the sage. Of course there is not arborio rice here, I used white organic rice and good homemade vegetable stock and I must say I am quite satisfied with the result.

Making homemade vegetable stock is not hard, you could make a lot and keep it in the fridge for 2-3 days or freeze them. I haven’t found any good vegetable stock cubes in Indonesia so I have been making my own stock :)

And after finished cooking and all, I forgot to take photos of that beautiful zucca…huks… :( But the result was so yummmmmmm so it is okay :)

Risotto Alla Zucca - Pumpkin Risotto - Risotto dengan Labu

For 2 hungryyyyy people or 3 not so hungrrryyyy people :)

I put Pink Floyd as my cooking soundtrack!

1/4 of pumpkin, peeled, cubed, boiled and pureed

1/2 cup of rice

1/2 small onion

1 stalk of celery

Extra virgin olive oil

Sea salt and pepper

1/2 cup of freshly grated parmesan

2 knobs of butter

1 twig of sage, leaves picked

Homemade stock:

1 small onion, peeled

1 leek

2 carrots

3 cloves of garlic

7 coriander seeds

5 peppercorns

some twigs of thyme

1 celery

1,5 liter of water

Boil all ingredients for stock for 20 minutes and set aside

Finely chopped the celery and onion

Heat a couple of glugs of olive oil and fry the chopped celery and onion in low heat for 20 minutes or until soft but not coloured

Turn up the heat and add the rice, fry for few minutes till the rice looks abit transparent, add a ladle of stock and stir until it evaporates

Turn down the heat to medium, add another ladle of stock and a spoonful of mashed pumpkin and keep stirring until the stock is absorbed by the rice, keep doing this until the rice is cooked. Turn off the heat, add the parmesan and a knob of butter, cover for a minute or so.

Heat a knob of butter and fry the sage leaves until crispy

Transfer the risotto to serving plate, drizzle with extra virgin olive oil, freshly grated parmesan and the crispy sage leaves. I ate mine with this wonderful red cabbage stew and fresh bread :)

Buon appetito!

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