Sunday, March 14, 2010

The Daring Cooks' March 2010 Challenge-Comfort Food from the Heart

The 2010 March Daring Cooks challenge was hosted by Eleanor of MelbournefoodGeek and Jess of Jessthebaker. They chose to challenge Daring Cooks to make risotto. The various components of their challenge recipe are based on input from the Australian Masterchef cookbook and the cookbook Moorish by Greg Malouf.
Hello fellow daring cooks! Doesn't it seem just like a few days ago that we posted our mezzes? Well technically it was a few days ago--tee hee! And now it's time to show what we've done with the March challenge which is yummy risotto. Rice has always been close to the Filipino, some of us eat rice three times a day, breakfast, lunch and dinner! So it's not a surprise to find a lot of rice-based recipes here.
I chose to combine east and west in my risotto recipe by making it into BRINGHE which is traditionally made with white rice and glutinous rice. The texture of the risotto is perfect for this dish. After making the risotto base. I added turmeric and coconut milk to the remaining stock. I used patis (fish sauce) in seasoning my risotto to make it taste more like bringhe. I sauteed diced red bell peppers, chicken fillet pieces, diced pork and small shrimps and topped my bringhe with it. I boiled eggs to decorate my plate after.
I still have some leftover Carnaroli risotto rice in my pantry and I am thinking of other variations I can try with it.
The risotto was colored with turmeric and cooked further in coconut milk

Chicken Stock
Ingredients:
1 large chicken 2-3 pounds about 1 kg
chicken bones 2-3 pounds 1 kg
2 onions, roughly diced
1 medium leek - white part only, roughly diced
2 sticks celery, roughly diced
2 cloves garlic, halved
1 cinnamon stick
1 tsp. white peppercorns ( Any type of whole peppercorn will do)
2 bay leaves (fresh or dried, it doesn't matter.)
peel of 1/2 lemon
1/4 tsp. allspice

Directions:
Wash the chicken and bones and places in a 5 Litre pot, cover completely with water and bring to a boil
Skim away any scum as it comes to the surface
Add the vegetables and bring back to a boil
Add the rest remaining ingredients and simmer very gently, uncovered for 1.5 hours
Carefully lift out the chicken, set aside. The chicken meat can be removed from the chicken, shredded off and used for other things like soup!
Simmer the stock gently for another hour. At , at the end you should have around 2 Liters
Carefully ladle the liquid into a fine sieve, the less the bones and vegetables are disturbed in this process the clearer the stock will be. 
The stock is now ready for use. Freeze what you don't need for later use.

Risotto Base
Ingredients:
olive oil 2 fluid oz 60 ml
1 small onion, quatered
rice 14 oz 400g Any type of risotto rice will do. I use Arborio but the recipe itself says Vialone Nano. Another to look for is Carnaroli.
white wine 2 fl oz 60 ml
chicken or vegetable stock , simmering 2 pints 1 L

Directions:
Heat oil in a pan and add onion. Fry for a few minutes to flavour the oil then discard. (We diced ours and left it in as we like onion).
Add the rice and stir for a few minutes to coat each grain of rice with oil and toast slightly.
Add the wine and let it bubble away until evaporated.
Add enough stock to cover the rice by a finger’s width (about an inch or two). Don't actually stick your finger in, it will be hot. Just eye it off.
Cook on medium heat, stirring with a wooden spoon from time to time, until most of the stock has been absorbed.
Repeat Step 5 making sure to leave aside approximately 100 ml. of stock for the final step. .
Repeat, save 100ml for the final stage.
Once you are at this point, the base is made. You now get to add your own variation
Thank you Eleanor of MelbournefoodGeek and Jess of Jessthebaker for this month's challege!

23 comments:

Wic said...

what a amazing way to answer this months challenge.
just love it.

Audax said...

I love idea of bringhe risotto a beautiful and tasty combination of East and West. And the final photo looks so creamy and delicious. Well done on this challenge. Cheers from Audax in Sydney Australia.

Anonymous said...

Good job! I like the idea with the coconut milk!

Evelyne CulturEatz said...

I never heard of bringhe, got to try that, love coconut milk. Nice combo of east and west indeed

Heather Mulholland said...

Thank you for the wonderful comment you left on my blog.

Hope you had as much with the challenge as I did :)

- Heather Mulholland

(ignore the dougal account, I don't have any proper accounts with what I'm allowed to use for blogger lol)

Milagritos said...

I love your creative input, it's so interesting that your risotto is inspired by your cultural background, I bet yours is delicious...it looks so creamy and rich, thanks for sharing this! Milagritos from mothertucka

innBrooklyn said...

Such new ideas for me: what a great idea, and I love that I'm learning about new foods and flavors.

Jo said...

Great job on your challenge. I too made a risotto which included coconut milk in it.

Care said...

Your risotto looks so creamy, and the flavors sound delicious. What a creative take on this challenge!

TaGa_Luto said...

Wow! I learned something new, okay..i've not heard of bringhe. I'm assuming this is a Luzon dish coz i'm from Cebu and haven't heard this. Love the combination!

Marisa said...

I love that you also put a local twist on the risotto challenge! Looks great.

shelley c. said...

What a great idea! And yummmm coconut milk! :) Great work on the challenge!!

Lisa said...

Wow..your risotto is uber creamy and I love the way it's plated with the egg. It reminds me of a nice, summer lunch..especially with the coconut milk. Beatifully done!

Margie said...

I'm so impressed with your combination of Philippine and Italian recipes. I would never have thought to use cinnamon in chicken stock for a savory risotto. Thanks for the introduction to bringhe.

Angelica said...

What a great idea to add your own ethnic flavors to a risotto! And love how you added coconut milk, i can totally picture eating this risotto by the beach ;)

Valérie said...

Yay, fusion! I wasn't familiar with bringhe, thanks for teaching us! It looks great!

Sarah said...

Coconut sauce and tumeric in the risotto base?! Sign me up. You were so creative! Great work.

Lori said...

Very nice. Coconut milk would be delicious with risotto. We love coconut milk.

Mary Bergfeld said...

What a lovely risotto. I really love how folks using basically the same ingredients came up with such different, delicious entries. I stopped by just to see what you had done for the challenge, but spent a lot of time here looking through your other entries. Your blog is wonderful. I'll be back often.

Kris Ngoei said...

The rice is really creamy.... this is a good choice, Bringhe version of risotto.. would really want to try it :-)

Sawadee from Bangkok,
Kris

NKP said...

Wonderful! Looks delicious.

Barbara Bakes said...

Love how you changed this up with cinnamon and coconut!

Olive said...

your risotto looks perfect to me, I was going for that creamy consistency but it was my first time and didn't know how to achieve that. I love your version of risotto..now I know what to use bringhe for :)..