Apparently yes.
I was dealing with some stuff so I wasn’t so into it, but other people who tried it liked it… I suppose that’s encouraging, this being my first risotto. (It was a bit too salty, though.)
I basically followed Felicity Cloake’s advice, though:
- I had to use arborio rice–the other stuff wasn’t available.
- I forgot to get white cooking wine, so I just used red, which gave the risotto a pinkish color (deepened by the red bell pepper I threw in later).
- I ended up using a mix of cheddar and pecorino cheeses, again beause that’s what we had on hand… though I really like pecorino so that was fine with me.
- I threw in some garlic and lemongrass in the first stage, along with the onions, though that didn’t really come through.
- The soup stock was homemade, with lime leves and galangal included in the mix, though those didn’t really shine through much either–I think the galangal would need to go in later in the process, perhaps with the rice, and that the lime leaves would need to be used in more abundance in the stock for the flavor to come through.
- At the end, just before adding the cheese, I added diced red bell pepper, and after getting the cheese in and whippin g it up to the right consistency, I flavored the risotto with fresh basil, coriander–which did have enough punch to get through the cheese and butter.
The result?
The saltiness was a disappointment for me… in part because it resulted from a stupid mistake–while making the soup, I realized I had failed to reserve any stock for the risotto, and had to add (salted) soup stock to (salted) risotto-on-the-cook. Of course, all things are relative: it was too salty for me, but I suppose everyone else was fine.
Anyway. That’s that. Next week, Aglio Olio pasta, using a method I came up with the other day. It was pretty badass… Mrs. Jiwaku said it was the best she’d ever had, and that’s saying something as she’s crazy about Aglio Olio.