All the colours of spring in this healthy risotto
ingredienti per 4 porzioni (costo circa 2,5 € ap)
- 1 peperone corno rosso
- 1 small eggplant
- 240 g di riso carnaroli
- Un bicchierino di vino bianco
- 1,2 litri di brodo vegetale
- Olio di semi di girasole EV
- 1 piccola cipolla
- Sale
- 40 g di burro
- 40 g di Parmigiano Reggiano
- Menta fresca
- pepe nero macinato
I adore transitional seasons. Spring and autumn are both magnificent. Moreover during these seasons excellent natural products are in sale.
Cooking during spring and autumn always inspires me. The only thing I have to do is to visit an organic market, there I can find everything I need to prepare a decent dish.
One of my favourite risottos is the vegetable one we will prepare today. I often call it “spring risotto” because during spring today´ s dish ingredients are very tender and fragrant. As summer comes pepper’s and eggplant´s peel becomes tougher and the same fruits become larger and less tasty.
So, when you will find the first vegetables of the season, just try this risotto.
Horn peppers have a very thin skin that it no need to be removed. So we cut the horn pepper in very small dice, as we do with the raw eggplant. We subfry both veggies till very tender. We remove them and in the same pan we gently fty the onion for about 10 minutes
In a small pan we lightly toast the rice WITH NO FAT AT ALL and when it is so hot that we cannot touch it in our hands, we pour it into the sofrito pan. We add the wine and then we start cooking the risotto, adding a ladle of very hot – boiling stock, when the liquid starts to get reduced and stirring very often with a wooden ladle in orger to extract rice’s starches.
Mentre si prepara il risotto, grattugiamo finemente il formaggio.
Quando il riso è pronto (al dente ovviamente), togliamo la padella dal fuoco. Assaggiamo il sale e, se necessario, ne aggiungiamo di più.
Stirring continuously we start adding the butter, the cheese, the chopped mint and the dice of vegetables. We continue stirring until we obtain a very creamy result, we cover the pan with a lid and we let it stand for 2-3 minutes.
We put in plates, we garnish with tiny fresh mint leaves and black pepper and we serve.
