Dinner

[dsrtao]

I felt like cooking rather than eating leftover chicken piccata (yummy, but Eliz will have a long day tomorrow, so it will be better to eat it tomorrow...) but didn't have any inspiration. A chat with Eliz and a few flips through a cookbook later, I decided on chicken in a carrot sauce and risotto with spinach and mushrooms.

I had never made the chicken dish before and I had never made risotto in a pressure cooker. Oh, and without supervision I don't follow recipes -- I look at ingredients and cooking methods and take it from there. The carrot sauce was basically pan drippings from sauteing the chicken, plus chopped carrots, coriander, ginger and paprika with chicken broth, boil then puree. I added garlic and onion and about eight times as much coriander as specified. Rather than puree, I ran the carrots through the grater of a food processor before cooking, then used a hand blender to partially smooth it after cooking. Oh, and a healthy glug or six of sherry. Very tasty.

Risotto in a pressure cooker is easy and fast. Fry onions, garlic and rice in a little olive oil; steam spinach on top. Dump into the cooker with liquid and dried shiitakes; when it pops, stir in butter and parmesan cheese. Yum.

Comments

[learnedax.livejournal.com]

And the texture of the risotto is the same as with gradual liquid addition? I had always heard that the results were close, but not quite right.

[dsrtao]

Slightly overdone, but I can reduce the cooking time a minute or so next time. Otherwise, great.

[abbergails.livejournal.com]

It must be in the genes. I only follow recipes for baking.

[dsrtao]

Ayup. And for certain items I throw all caution to the wind.

Once I did an analysis of two dozen brownie recipes. While all of them contained [flour, eggs, sugar, baking powder, oil or butter] the ratios and additional ingredients were all over the map. Almost anything will work to make brownies.