More Risotto and my first hosting challenge!

If you were wondering why there was an abundance of risotto here over the last few months it was because my pal Jess and I hosted our first Daring Cooks challenge! We decided to challenge everyone to make risotto and stock from scratch. The recipes are below.
If you scan through the last few entries you can see some of my past results. I'll post the other photos when I find the disk......

It was great to see so many different takes on this challenge, both sweet and savoury. There was also lots of Arancini being made with leftovers too!


The 2010 March Daring Cooks challenge was hosted by Eleanor of MelbournefoodGeek and Jess of Jessthebaker. They chose to challenge Daring Cooks to make risotto. The various components of their challenge recipe are based on input from the Australian Masterchef cookbook and the cookbook Moorish by Greg Malouf.


Chicken Stock
Ingredients:
1 large chicken 2-3 pounds about 1 kg
chicken bones 2-3 pounds 1 kg
2 onions, roughly diced
1 medium leek - white part only, roughly diced
2 sticks celery, roughly diced
2 cloves garlic, halved
1 cinnamon stick
1 tsp. white peppercorns ( Any type of whole peppercorn will do)
2 bay leaves (fresh or dried, it doesn't matter.)
peel of 1/2 lemon
1/4 tsp. allspice
Directions:

1. Wash the chicken and bones and places in a 5 Litre pot, cover completely with water and bring to a boil
2. Skim away any scum as it comes to the surface
3. Add the vegetables and bring back to a boil
4. Add the rest remaining ingredients and simmer very gently, uncovered for 1.5 hours
5. Carefully lift out the chicken, set aside. The chicken meat can be removed from the chicken, shredded off and used for other things like soup!
6. Simmer the stock gently for another hour. At , at the end you should have around 2 Liters
7. Carefully ladle the liquid into a fine sieve, the less the bones and vegetables are disturbed in this process the clearer the stock will be. 
The stock is now ready for use. Freeze what you don't need for later use.

Risotto Base
Ingredients:
olive oil 2 fluid oz 60 ml
1 small onion, quatered
rice 14 oz 400g
Any type of risotto rice will do. I use Arborio but the recipe itself says Vialone Nano. Another to look for is Carnaroli.
white wine 2 fl oz 60 ml
chicken or vegetable stock , simmering 2 pints 1 L
Directions:

1. Heat oil in a pan and add onion. Fry for a few minutes to flavour the oil then discard. (We diced ours and left it in as we like onion).
2. Add the rice and stir for a few minutes to coat each grain of rice with oil and toast slightly.
3. Add the wine and let it bubble away until evaporated.
4. Add enough stock to cover the rice by a finger’s width (about an inch or two). Don't actually stick your finger in, it will be hot. Just eye it off.
5. Cook on medium heat, stirring with a wooden spoon from time to time, until most of the stock has been absorbed.
6. Repeat Step 5 making sure to leave aside approximately 100 ml. of stock for the final step. .
7. Repeat, save 100ml for the final stage.
8. Once you are at this point, the base is made. You now get to add your own variation.

Pumpkin Risotto (OPTIONAL recipe)
Ingredients:
pumpkin, grated 7oz 200g Don't use butternut, the taste will be too watery
thyme, chopped 1 Tbsp
unsalted butter 3.5 oz 100g chilled and cut into small cubes
parmesan cheese, grated 2 oz 60g
Directions:

1. Melt half the butter in a saucepan. Add pumpkin and cook until tender. Set aside (optional - blend for a smoother texture)
2. Make the base up until the end of step 8.
3. Stir through the pumpkin mixture and thyme
4. Add the final 100ml of stock and hte remaining butter and stir until both are completely absorbed. Stir through the parmesan, stick the lid on and let it sit for a few minutes.

Preserved Lemon Risotto (OPTIONAL recipe)
Serves 4 as a starter or light lunch
Ingredients:
1 preserved lemon, peel only, finely diced. (The lemons from last months challenge should be perfect by now, otherwise you can buy them. Regular lemon zest will work as well.)
celery leaves, from the heart, finely chopped 1 Tbsp
unsalted butter 3.5 oz 100g chilled and cut into small cubes
parmesan cheese, grated 2 oz 60g
Directions:

1. Make the base until the end of step 8.
2. Stir through the preserved lemon
3. Add the final 100ml of stock and butter and stir until both are completely absorbed. Stir through the parmesan, stick the lid on and let it sit for a few minutes.

This one has a very strong taste, it is best served as a base with something else. We stirred through goats cheese. It was delicious.
Enjoy!
Resources:
For Stock recipes other than Chicken:
http://www.epicurious.com/recipes/food/views/Vegetable-Stock-105762
For preserved lemon recipes:
http://www.epicurious.com/recipes/food/views/Moroccan-Style-Preserved-Le...
Videos of risotto-making:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EgX3_3JYDFk

Oops

Brief update as to the happenings since the last post.

- The show was amazing. It all came together and just worked. The only down side to the show is that my list of people I won't work with again has grown slightly. If you're going to flake on me, at least tell me, don't just not show up.

- I have enjoyed several nice week long breaks from work due to the marvels of shift work.

- Although I haven't made the powder puffs yet, I did score a heap of frozen egg yolks after baking a huge batch of friands for an all day show rehearsal followed by an evening band concert. There was coffee, lime, and mandarin and poppyseed. my personal favourite was the lime. I baked them in mini muffin tins so you just got this burst of flavour and didn't have to worry about finishing the entire thing. I also baked some crunchy chocolate biscuits, which were also a hit. All leftovers made it to work and didn't last very long after that.

Currently I'm delving into the world of fresh pasta and learning to cook for one. I'm really not the biggest fan of eating leftovers for 3 days. I can handle eating it the next day but not for much longer and the freezer isn't very big so it doesn't hold much.

Last weeks trip to the Vic market resulted in some fresh lasagna sheets as well as goats cheese, basil and pesto agnolottis and rabbit and red wine agnolottis. The rabbit ones are still in the freezer, awaiting for sauce inspiration. The lasagna had a 4 layers of pasta in the following order, sauce, pasta, fresh baby spinach (don't bother blanching it, just give it a quick rinse and stick it in) pasta, sauce, pasta, mushroom and garlic mix (this was meant to be a layer of caramelised onion and mushroom ut the fry pan fell of the stove so I had to improvise) pasta, sauce then sprinklings of goats chevre, cheddar and parmesan. Baked for ~20 minutes at 180 C. Very, very tasty.

The goats cheese angolotti was consumed the other day in the same base sauce as the lasagna, just spritzed up a little. The base sauce was just shallots, garlic, red wine, basil, sage, rosemary and tomato passata. Seasoned with freshly ground black pepper and a little salt. So the spritzing consisted of more garlic and shallots sauteed with some minced lamb, more fresh rosemary, red wine. This is one dish where you really don't need any extra cheese on top and there is enough cheesy flavour in the pasta already.

Last night magical meal was duck fried rice.

1 duck breast with fat trimmed
3 mushrooms
1 shallot
garlic
ginger
soy sauce
mirin
1 lime
2/3 red capsicum
rice - I like a mix of basmanti and wild rice

fry the duck in a hot ungreased pan, skin side down until crispy, then turn it over and continue until tender. As the duck will be slightly recooked with the rice, its important to not over cook (especially if you're intending on reheating this later like I am).
In the mean time, cook the rice, I normally say ~ 1/2 cup uncooked, for 2 people if I'm adding stuff to it.

Then its really just a case of stir frying the garlic, ginger, shallots, mushrooms and capsicum together, add about a tablespoon of soy, splog of mirin then the duck that has been finely sliced. Add the rice and finish up with the juice of the lime.

The predominant flavour was lime, could have backed off on that quite a bit. It reheated nicely at work ~2min on high, stir part way through.

Tonights was a very special meal, I made risotto again!!!

100g minced chicken breast
3 chipolatas
shallots
garlic
2 mushrooms
risotto rice
red wine
more pasta sauce, warmed with some warm water.

The chicken and chipolatas were fried in pan with a little olive oil. You'll want to break up the chipolatas so it resembles the chicken mince. this way they not only cook quicker but you don't actually want huge chunks.

In a saucepan, sautee the garlic, shallots and mushrooms together.
Add the rice and fry for about 3 minutes
Add about 1 glass of red wine and stir until absorbed. Then add the sauce/water mix in small additions, stirring constantly. Don't add the next lot of liquid until the previous lot has been absorbed. Just before the last lot of liquid, add the meat and all the pan juices.

Lastly, stir in a knob of butter and some parmesan cheese