Fun with Risotto

Sunday evening I was feeling some serious post-race dinner.  I picked up some filets, which Joe prepared, along with a sweet potato and the fixins to make risotto.  You can't go wrong with a sweet potato.  I just peeled it, diced it, boiled it, then mashed it up with about 2 tablespoons of butter, a tablespoon of brown sugar, a little garlic, and a splash of skim milk (organic, of course).  The risotto was really basic, but freaking delicious.  Recipe was as follows:

3 T unsalted butter

1 1/2 cups arborio rice

1 medium shallot, diced

1/2 cup Chardonnay

1 T lemon juice

6 cups beef stock, brought to a boil then kept over low heat

1/3 cup freshly shredded parmesan

freshly ground pepper

In a large saute pan over medium heat, melt the butter and then add the rice.  Stir in the rice so that it all gets a nice, thin coating of butter.  Let that brown slightly--about 2-3 minutes.  Throw in the shallot and stir a bit until the shallot is translucent.  Stir in the Chardonnay and lemon juice.  Stir until Chardonnay is absorbed by the rice.  Once the Chardonnay is absorbed, add a ladle of the beef stock and stir continually until the stock is absorbed.  Repeat this process until all of the beef stock has been added--this should take about 20 minutes. Turn off heat and stir in the parmesan and pepper.

This recipe makes way too much risotto for two people, so we had a lot leftover yesterday.  That turned into risotto cakes, as risotto cakes are apparently their best when the risotto has been chilled over night in the fridge.  I just made four balls of risotto, each about the size of my palm, and smashed them down to about 1 inch thick.  I then heated over medium heat a tablespoon of EVOO in a saute pan and browned the cakes on each side.  What was extra yummy was the sauce I made for the risotto cakes, though.  It was a red pepper cream sauce, which was THIS simple:

1 medium red bell pepper, roasted, peeled, and chopped

1 T EVOO

1/2 of a small onion, diced

1 t red pepper flakes

one twist of the sea salt grinder

1/3 cup heavy whipping cream

In a saute pan, heat the EVOO over medium heat.  Add the onion and stir until translucent.  Add the red pepper flakes and sea salt, stir, then transfer to a blender.  Add the red bell pepper also to the blender and puree until the mixture is smooth.  Finally, add the heavy whipping cream and pulse until the mixture is a nice, light orange color.

It was SO good.  There is so much of the red pepper cream sauce leftover today that we are going to have it again, but I will be making a poblano cream sauce as well.  I wanted to add a different color to the plate, since there has been so much orange food over the past couple of days.  Today, we're going to have the risotto cakes and pepper cream sauces with some strip steaks and a pound of snow crab legs.  Mmmmm... can't wait!