Sunday, November 11, 2007

Risotto carbonara, kind of but not really

So last night I decided to make the risotto carbonara, or at least what I though would be risotto carbonara. I'm a big fan of pasta carbonara and have been experimenting with risotto so I decided to try something different. I didn't follow a recipe, the one I found online called for cream and putting cream in risotto is a sin. I figured I could do a basic carbonara, without the eggs because the starch in the risotto should fill in for the binding that the eggs provide, and be good to go. The end result was good, but not quite what I expected. Here's what I did.

Ingredients:

7 slices of bacon (chopped into half inch pieces)
2 boneless, skinless chicken breasts
1 Tblsp of olive oil
1 medium onion, diced
1 Tblsp of diced garlic
5 cups of chicken stock
1.5 cups of risotto (aborio rice)
1/2 cup Parmesan cheese
1/2 cup Romano cheese

Chop the bacon and place in large saute pan over medium high heat with olive oil, render fat and cook until crispy. Remove bacon and place on a plate with paper towel.

Cut the chicken breasts into cubes and cook in the bacon fat until done. Remove and place on paper towel to drain.

Toss onion into the pan with the remaining fat and cook until just about brown and throw in the garlic and cook for another minute or two.

Pour the rice into the pan with the onions and garlic and cook for a couple of minutes stirring constantly. Place the chicken and bacon into the mixture and stir. Pour enough of the chicken stock to cover the mixture. Keep at a boil and stir almost constantly until a good portion of the stock is absorbed by the rice.

Turn down the heat and cover. You're going to want to cook it for about 15 minutes but you will want to check it and stir a few times before it'll be done. Stirring the rice is very important so it doesn't stick together and so it becomes creamy.

Before sering add a significant amount of cheese to each serving.

Now the end result isn't carbonara. It was really good, but it wasn't carbonara. The bacon and the chicken turned out really well and everything was very creamy. I don't know what I should do to make it more carbonara. Add the cheese while cooking? But for now I think I'll call it my bacon and chicken risotto.

1 comment:

Amy said...

Nice blog, Zack. But now I'm starving. Great. All I have are whole wheat crackers. Where is my risotto?