Mestolando, where home cooked italian food happens.

Risotto with fresh artichokes and arborio rice.

Rice like pasta is an essential food in our house, cooking it in a risotto style recipe adds lots of flavor.

Ingredients for 4

• 6-8 Fresh Artichokes
• 500 grams (18 oz) arborio rice
• handful of parsley
• clove of fresh garlic
• extra virgin olive oil
• 1 beef broth cube
• 2 tablespoons of butter
• 1 lemon or lemon juice
• parmesan cheese
• salt and pepper for seasoning

how to prepare, taken from the video

Start by squeezing some lemon juice into a bowl or pot of water, this will be used for the artichokes after they are cleaned and cut in half, and should prevent them from browning.

Next clean the artichokes by pruning the brownish outer leaves, cutting off the top crown points and peeling away the outer layer of the stem. then cut the artichoke in half and scrape out the dry white fluffy inner part with a knife, and place them in the water for now.

When all the artichokes are cleaned, cut in half and in the water, it’s time to take them out and cut them into smaller strip like pieces. cutting the long way and then in half a couple times.

Now that the artichokes are ready I dice up a couple cloves of garlic and a healthy handful of parsley keeping them separate. Put half of the parsley aside for now.

After that put a large frying pan on the stove and cover the bottom with 3-4 table spoons of extra virgin olive oil. Add in the garlic and half the parsley letting them simmer on a very low heat for about 10 min or until the garlic is a light golden color, stirring occasionally to evenly cook the garlic.

When the garlic is ready add the artichokes to the same pan, turn up the heat to medium and stir them around making sure the artichokes are well coated. Put the lid back on, lower the flame a little and let them simmer for about 20 min stirring them around a couple times. While they’re simmering add a pinch or two of salt and some ground black pepper.

At this point you can decide to cook the artichokes for longer if you prefer the final risotto to be silky smooth because the artichokes will be softer, or you can keep them a little hard ‘al dente’ for texture. In this video recipe we keep them a little ‘al dente’ for texture, other times we’ve cooked the artichokes longer and got a mushy but smooth texture at the end.

Now add the rice and stir it in well for a few minutes raising the flame to a medium heat.

After that add in a couple ladles of beef broth lower the flame a little and stir that around until the broth starts to evaporate. Repeat the adding of broth and stirring everytime the previous broth has evaporated or the mixture starts to look chunky. Make sure to add in small amounts of broth until the rice is cooked, taste the rice when doing this to see if it’s cooked. The idea is not to end up with lots of broth in the final dish, a little broth that gives a moist feel is what you want.

After the rice is cooked test it for seasoning, add in salt to your taste.

Now add in some butter about 3 tablespoons worth and the rest of the chopped up parsley stirring them in well.

To finish it off mix in about a cup of grated parmesan cheese. The risotto should be ready to serve.

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