de facto redhead

Hi, everyone! Welcome to the first cooking collaboration between Ami and I! As I mentioned on Facebook and in my previous blog post, we will be attempting to either cook or bake a new recipe every week, and we will be sharing our adventures with you – and just because this recipe happened to turn out well and cook rather smoothly, don’t assume that we (well, me, at least) are chef extraordinaires who are taking on this project only to rub your pretty little noses in our kitchen prowess. All you have to do is read my last post to see that, to me, this a whole new world, worthy of Jasmine and Aladdin singing on a magic carpet. Anyway, without further ado, here is my and Ami’s first recipe of barley risotto with roasted winter vegetables, which is a foodnetwork.com recipe suggested to us by our friend, Sandy/Alex:

Ingredients

• 4 cups chicken or vegetable broth, homemade or low-sodium canned
• 2 sprigs fresh thyme
• 1 medium carrot, sliced
• 1 small celery root (about 1/2 pound), peeled and cut into 3/4-inch chunks
• 1/2 small butternut squash, halved, peeled, seeded, and cut into 3/4-inch chunks
• 4 tablespoons extra-virgin olive oil
• 1 teaspoon kosher salt, plus additional for seasoning
• 1 cup pearl barley
• 1/2 medium onion, chopped
• 2 cloves garlic, smashed
• 1/2 cup dry white wine
• 4 to 5 cups torn mustard greens (1 small bunch)
• Freshly ground black pepper
• 1 cup freshly grated Parmesan, optional

Directions

Preheat the oven to 425 degrees F.

Toss the carrot, celery root, and butternut squash with 2 tablespoons of the olive oil and the salt on a baking sheet and spread out in an even layer. Roast until golden and tender, about 25 minutes.

Combine the chicken broth and thyme in a pot and bring to a simmer.

Heat the remaining 2 tablespoons olive oil in a large saucepan over medium-high heat. Add the barley, onion and garlic, and cook, stirring occasionally, until the vegetables soften a bit, about 5 minutes. Pour in the wine, and cook, stirring constantly, until the liquid is absorbed. Add 2 cups of the broth, reduce the heat to medium-low, and simmer until the liquid is absorbed, stirring frequently. Add the remaining broth and simmer, stirring occasionally, until the barley is tender but still slightly firm and the mixture is still soupy, about 30 minutes. Add the roasted vegetables and cook until the vegetables are heated through. Stir the mustard greens into the risotto, then let the mixture sit until the greens wilt, about 3 minutes. If the risotto thickens up too much, thin it out with a little hot water. Season with salt and pepper. Serve immediately (or else face certain death). Pass grated cheese at the table (not exactly a necessary step, and why dirty an extra bowl?).

Here are the ingredients and brands I used.

Here are the ingredients and brands Ami used. (Is that not one of the biggest carrots you have ever seen? My carrots look pathetic in comparison.)

The various stages of risotto cooking.

My risotto on the left, Ami’s on the right.

First off, let’s address the ingredients. Mustard greens? Celery root? Never heard of them. Well, I hadn’t until I read this recipe. Ami and I both struggled to find mustard greens – I had absolutely no success, and all she found was stray mustard greens mixed in with other leafy vegetables. I ended up using spinach, and Ami used kale. She also added more ground pepper to her dish because she had read that mustard greens have a more pepper-like taste than kale. And what about the curious celery root? It’s that ugly brown, warty-looking thing in my ingredients picture. It was actually pretty easy to find (I saw it at both Longo’s and Food Basics), but in a fit of contrariness, Ami’s root pulled a disappearing act because it overheard us calling it names, and she used turnips instead. I didn’t make any other substitutions, but Ami used 1/2 tsp. of dried thyme  in place of the fresh stuff, and also grated Pecorino Romano cheese instead of Parmesan. Oh, and we both didn’t know what “smashed” garlic meant, so we each went for the next best thing: minced. I actually tried to “smash” my garlic down with the bottom of a spoon, but that method was useless. One more note about the ingredients: can I just please complain about how hard butternut squash is to peel? *Whine*

OK, on to the actual cooking. Ami and I found the recipe fairly simple to follow, and the only thing we thought to be off about the instructions was the second addition of the broth, which is supposed to take 30 minutes to soak up into the barley – we thought it was more like 15-20 minutes. There actually isn’t much more to say, other than if you’re skeptical (as I was) about roasting the vegetables first and then leaving them out in the open until they’re ready to go in the risotto, don’t be. A warning, however, to those with errant husbands and/or boyfriends who are underfoot whilst you’re cooking: Ami remarked that her husband Chris “kept picking them (the roasted vegetables) off the pan and eating them.” G’way with you!

From start to finish, the recipe took me an hour and 40 minutes, and that’s from setting everything out on the counter to sitting down with fork in hand. And, by the time I did sit down, I had, of course, sampled the risotto, and I thought it to be quite good! The taste of the celery root was a bit questionable, but any doubt was easily disguised by the mixture of other flavours and textures in the risotto. Ami and I both agreed it was very filling, but that being said, Darcy ate his right up, and Chris scarfed down three servings. You man, you like risotto. Me woman, I full. Based on those  nine words of supreme articulation, I rate this dish a 3.5 or 4 (so, 3.75?) out of 5, and Ami rates it a 3 out of 5. For me, I found the Parmesan really gave the dish that extra oomph into cheesy goodness that is my score of 3.75 out of 5.

Questions? Comments? Let us know!

This entry was posted on Monday, February 14th, 2011 at 9:04 am and is filed under Cooking. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.