So in order to pay back the family that has been so generous in putting me up, I volunteered to go out and cook them dinner yesterday. It was a small token of appreciation for picking me up from the airport, giving me basically free room and board, and helping me out with any questions I had about Sydney. And also considering that I didn’t know them beforehand, and they did this for a complete stranger – just unbelievable kindness.
So I took a short walk to the local shopping area and found all the stuff I needed to make my dinner. I went with the one thing that I’m very comfortable making that also looks and tastes great – Risotto. I also thought about a meat course, and since I’m in Australia, I settled for local lamb. There was a really nice butcher who recommended me some nice chops and I brought them back and started my prep work. I also managed to sneak a couple photos of the indigenous supermarkets... pretty riveting stuff (in a not at all kind of way).
This will become relevant at the end of the page,
And yes, technically the last one was from a pet store AND its placement in this set of photos is misleading, but even the dogs eat kangaroo around here!Pea Risotto with Grilled Lamb Chops and Asparagus
Pea Risotto
2 cups Frozen Peas
Fresh Mint
2 cups Arborio Rice
2 small onions
2 cloves of garlic
1 glass of white wine
2 cups vegetable stock
Generous knob of butter
Salt & Pepper
Grilled Lamb
Salt + Pepper
Lamb Chops
Dried Oregano and Rosemary
Method:
For the risotto, start by blanching the peas until tender, season with salt and pepper. Then take out the peas and reserve the cooking liquid. Put the peas into a blender and add the mint and a bit of the cooking liquid and blend until smooth. Add a bit of butter if you want and season. Set aside.
For the rice, you can either parboil the rice with the cooking liquid (which I recommend) or you can do it the old fashioned way, but I chose to parboil it to save time. And using the cooking liquid is good because it imparts some of the pea flavour (ha!) into the rice. Then set aside, preferably spread out over a tray so it cools down quickly.
So to finish the risotto, sweat off the onions and garlic in a thick pot, making sure it doesn’t over-caramelize (aka burn). Then add the pre-cooked rice and fry it for a bit, just until the rice starts to become translucent. Add the wine and cook out the alcohol, before slowly adding in stock and letting the rice absorb it. Depending on how much you cooked the rice before hand, this should take no more than 5 – 10 minutes. Just before finishing, add in the pea puree with a little bit of water. Finish with a little bit of butter mixed into the rice and top each plate with Parmesan cheese.
The lamb chops were just cooked in the oven via the broil function, but you could just as easily grill them outside or pan fry.
The asparagus was blanched and then refried in a little bit of olive oil.
And the finished product:
So here are some action shots of me doing the prep work and final cooking:
the deconstruction of an onion
And finally, here’s my host family sharing my first experience with Vegemite.
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