Daring Cooks March 2010: Risotto

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.

I love risotto and had been dying to make a bacon and cambozola risotto recipe so I just adapted it to the instructions and this was the perfect challenge for me. I make chicken stock all the time from leftover roasts so I had some already made in the freezer, hence no photo. However, I am usually really lazy and make my risotto by getting to the adding the rice, stock and wine stage and then shoving it in the oven for 25 mins, but this time I couldn't. So for probably only the second time ever, I actually made risotto the proper way, and it was delicious. Thank you to Eleanor and Jess for this fantastic challenge.



I served the risotto with a tomato, red onion and basil salad.

Risotto Base

2 fluid oz 60 ml olive oil
1 small onion, quartered
risotto rice 14 oz 400g Any type of risotto rice will do
white wine 2 fl oz 60 ml
chicken or vegetable stock , simmering 2 pints 1 L

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.