It seems that making a good risotto is very difficult. People always complain about getting the rice right. It’s still too hard or it’s too wet….  A couple of years ago we had a teambuilding event in Paris; we went cooking with a professional chef! That was really nice, unfortunately even with his help and support the rice still wasn’t cooked with enough bouillon and we ended up eating hard risotto rice; a small disappointment but the rest was really good. I do understand the pain of making risotto, but I can assure you, it’s not rocket science! It’s just about the right amount of bouillon and a lot of patience. I think that the secret to a nice risotto is enough water: the rice needs to get soft all the way through.

This recipe is my boyfriend’s favorite dish; lemon risotto with a piece of baked salmon. He was delighted to hear it was going to be on my blog because it meant that we had to eat it to make some pictures of it.

Citroenrisotto
30 minutes
Average
0 – 5 euro pp

Ingredients for 4 pers.:

  • 300 gr risotto rice
  • 1 onion
  • 1 lemon
  • 150 ml white wine
  • 900 ml chicken bouillon
  • 1 small dash of white truffle oil

How to prepare it:

Start by cooking some water for the chicken bouillon and put a large cooking pan with a thick bottom on your stove. Chop the onion and add a bit of the olive oil in your pan. Weigh your rice to get the right amount. Heat up your stove, once the oil is hot you can add the onion. Fry the onion for 2 minutes before adding the rice. After you’ve added the rice, stir everything well until the rice is glazy from the oil. Let them bake for another minute. Add the wine, your pan should be really hot, so the wine is cooking immediately. Make sure you keep stirring. Once the wine is evaporated you can start adding the bouillon. Add the bouillon in separated fases, approx.. 100-200 ml at a time. You need to stir very regularly so the rice is not sticking to the bottom of the pan.

In the meantime you can already grate some of the lemon skin. We will add this later to the rice. Squeeze the juice from ½ of the lemon.

The rice needs to cook until all the bouillon is evaporated. At the moment that you add the last bit of the bouillon you can also add the lemon juice and the lemon skin. Stir everything again.

The risotto is ready once it’s a creamy substance without any hard pieces. You can taste a bit to make sure that the rice is ready. But you can also judge the rice by its color, the rice is bright white at the moment you start but it gets a friendlier and softer color once it’s ready. If you added all the bouillon but you’re not sure if the rice is ready you can always add some extra water, but you won’t add too much, the rice needs to remain sticky.

If you think the rice is ready you can add a small dash of truffle oil. Stir everything once more and it’s ready to go!

TIP: as mentioned above, this risotto is really nice with a slice of baked salmon but it actually fits well with all kinds of fish and seafood. It’s got a fresh and light taste so it mixes really well with fish.

Citroenrisotto