Leftover Turkey Risotto

Every time I make risotto, it gets easier. The first time, I was all intimidated, envisioning centuries of Italian grandmothers ready to whack me with wooden spoons if I didn’t keep stirring in a clockwise (or was it counter-clockwise?) direction. Well, after making risotto for a while, the niceties get thrown out the window.

Here is the easy risotto recipe I made with the leftovers of the leftovers from Thanksgiving. All I had on hand was turkey, thyme, an onion and mushrooms. And a bit of Parmesan. That is vital. -- AnglophileLV

Leftover Turkey Risotto: serves 4

Ingredients:
1 can chicken stock
½ C white wine (or a generous dash, enough to reach all the risotto grains in the pan)
1 cup Arborio rice
Butter or olive oil
½ onion, chopped into small pieces
5-10 mushrooms
2 tsp fresh thyme leaves
1 handful turkey bite-sized turkey chunks
½ cup parmesan
Turmeric (optional)

You’ll need 2 skillets for this operation, or one pot for the mushrooms and one skillet for the risotto.

1. Melt 1 Tb butter in the skillet. Add the onions and let them cook down. Add the Arborio rice and stir until it is more golden than white on LOW heat. This can take a while, but you don’t want the rice to burn. If you’re new to risotto, stir constantly. Otherwise, you can let it rest a bit while you’re doing other stuff and let instinct guide you.

2. Heat the chicken stock in the microwave for 2 minutes. Most recipes say to keep it boiling on the stove, but that uses another pot.

3. Add a generous dash of wine (about ½ cup) to the risotto. The wine releases the starches in the rice that will make it creamy later on. When the wine has soaked in, start adding the chicken stock little by little. Add some, wait until it soaks in, then add some more. Stir constantly, make sure the heat is low.

4. Melt butter in a small pot and add thickly chopped mushrooms. Let them sauté down a little, then add 1 tsp of the fresh thyme. Let sauté a little longer, and then add a dash of white wine. Toss in the turkey with the rest of the thyme and stir around.

5. Add the juice that’s accumulating in the mushroom pot to the risotto. 1 can of chicken broth isn’t quite enough, but this little bit of extra liquid seems to do the trick and marry the flavors rather well.

6. When the rice is creamy and not crunchy, add the parmesan, stir, and toss in the mushroom turkey mixture. Salt and pepper to taste (though I found that the chicken stock and parmesan were plenty salty enough).


This is a Wanderfood Wednesday post.

Easy Saffron Shrimp Risotto

Normally, I wouldn’t use cooked shrimp in this recipe. The purist in me wants everything done from scratch, and raw shrimp should be thrown in at the last minute to contribute their flavor to the risotto. But, what I have is frozen pre-cooked shrimp. And since I’m poor, that’s what I’m bloody well using, and it still tastes very good. --AnglophileLV

Ingredients
28 ounces chicken stock
1 tablespoon grapeseed or vegetable oil
1/2 a small white onion, finely chopped
2 large cloves of garlic, chopped
1 cup arborio rice
1 cup white wine
Large pinch of saffron, small pinch powdered ginger
1 tablespoon butter
1/4 cup grated Parmigiano-Reggiano
Squeeze of lemon
20 cooked shrimp (5 per person)

Bring stock to a low simmer in a medium pot. Heat oil in a large skillet over medium heat for 1 minute. Cook garlic and onion until the onion is translucent.. Add rice and a pinch of salt. Sauté until rice is slightly tanned. Add wine; bring to a simmer, stirring, until rice has absorbed most of wine. Add 2 ladles of stock to rice; simmer, stirring, until rice has absorbed most of stock. At this point, add the pinch of Saffron. Continue adding stock, allowing rice to absorb it before adding the next ladleful until the stock is gone. Stir in butter. Turn off heat. Stir in grated cheese, then add shrimp until they are hot. Cover and let sit 2 minutes. Divide among 4 bowls and squeeze fresh lemon over each. Garnish with parsley, if desired.

*I added some finely chopped green onions for some color, since I had some on hand that needed to be used.

Acorn Squash Risotto

Risotto – technically a Northern Italian specialty hovered over by wrinkly brown-skinned grandmothers wielding wooden spoons, throwing pinches of this and dashes of that like fairy godmothers with pixie dust –has been whole-heartedly adopted by the British. In 1885, The Pall Mall Gazette mentioned “a useful description of how to cook risotto, a delightful dish too rarely seen in England,” and evidently the craze took off from there. Now Risotto is on every menu, and done extremely well, though I do suspect the dairy-crazed Brits of adding cream to their recipes where none is needed. They add cream to everything…
--AnglophileLV

Acorn Squash Risotto
Serves 3

3 cups chicken stock
1 Tb olive oil
1 Tb butter
1 large shallot
1 winter squash, scooped out and cubed
2 garlic cloves
¾ cup Arborio rice
¼ cup dry white wine
Pinch of nutmeg
1/8 cup parmesan cheese
1 tsp Fresh parsley
1 tsp chopped fresh sage
2 sprigs thyme
Fresh ground pepper

1. Have the stock simmering on low heat in a saucepan.
2. Pierce the skin of the acorn squash with a knife and microwave for 6 minutes – this should cook it completely
3. Heat the oil or butter over medium heat in a large, heavy nonstick
frying pan and add the onion and garlic. Cook until the onion begins
to soften, about 3 minutes.
4. Add the Arborio Rice and stir until it changes to a golden color – don’t burn!
5. Stir in the wine and stir constantly until the wine is absorbed. Then add a ladleful of the simmering stock and stir.
6. When the first ladleful of stock is absorbed, add another and keep stirring. Repeat until all the stock is gone, one ladle at a time. This process can take around 25-30 minutes. You don’t *actually* have to stir continuously for the entire time, but stir often and keep the heat on medium low.
7. Cut the cooked acorn squash in half, scoop out the seeds, and peel off the skin as much as possible (watch out for your fingers, because it’s probably still hot). Chop the squash into square-ish chunks and set aside.
8. Taste the risotto to see if it’s cooked through – it should be chewy, but not hard in the middle. If it’s done, then stir in the parmesan, fresh ground pepper, nutmeg, parsley, sage and thyme leaves.
9. Add the squash, stir, and when everything is piping hot together, serve.