Risotto with Chorizo and Sun-Dried Tomato

I love experimenting with different flavour combinations, and I often cross foods and ingredients from one dish to another. We love using the Chorizo and Sun-Dried tomato combination, from savoury cookies to pizza toppings, and so I thought to myself, "why not risotto?" So, I tried it and it was delicious! I find that the gamut of flavours provided by the primary ingredients is enough for the dish, and there is really no need for additional spices or herbs. But that is just me; feel free to spice up this dish as you like.

For 2-3 people, you will need:

• 250 grams of arborio rice
• 100 grams of chorizo, sliced*
• 80 grams of sun-dried tomatoes***
• 1 litre of chicken stock (or vegetable stock)
• 250 millilitres of white wine**
• 15 grams of butter
• 1 small shallot, diced
• 1 tablespoon of olive oil
• 1/2 cup of parmesan cheese (ideally freshly grated)

* I am using cured chorizo, therefore I don't cook it beforehand. If you are using fresh chorizo, the same recipe will work after you cook your chorizo. Do not add uncooked chorizo to your risotto!

** You can replace the white wine with chicken stock, if you prefer.

Preparation time: 5 minutes
Cooking time: 20 minutes


I'll just stress one point before we begin; risotto is a dish that takes more active time than most other dishes. By this, I mean you will be constantly engaged with the dish and won't have much time to run off and do something else quickly. Therefore, it is imperative that you have your preparation, or mise-en-place, ready to go before you begin cooking (as pictured above).


Start with a large frying pan on medium-high heat, add the olive oil and the shallots.

Fry the shallots until browned.

Now reduce the heat to low, add your arborio rice, and stir the rice around the pan for about 30 seconds.

Add the white wine by pouring it all over the rice, and keep gently stirring.

In a few minutes, the wine will get absorbed by the rice, and the liquid in the pan will begin to disappear as you stir. What you are looking for is a texture that, when separated by the spatula, is not liquid enough to rejoin.

This is the time to add more liquid. Now we start with the chicken stock, adding one ladle at a time.

And again, constantly stir until you can separate the risotto with a spatula.

The key to a lovely, creamy risotto is adding just one ladle at a time.

And letting it all get absorbed.

After the third time ladling in your broth, taste one grain of rice before each new ladle to check the doneness of the rice. It might take you 20 minutes, or 750 ml of broth before your risotto is ready, but it depends on so many factors such as temperature, concentration of broth, variety of arborio, that it is better for you to check your own risotto.

When it is al dente, add the chorizo and sun-dried tomatos.

And stir them into the risotto, adding one last ladle of broth.

Allow it to simmer for half a minute, then remove from heat, add the butter and parmesan and mix. It may look like there is a lot of liquid in the pan, but it will get quickly absorbed, leaving you with a creamy and soft risotto. If you continue on heat until the liquid is fully absorbed, the risotto will dry out before serving.

And finally, plate and serve with parmesan slices (not shown). As a side dish, some blanched green beans would be delicious and aesthetically pleasing.

Note: You can see from the photos that I used whole pieces of sun-dried tomatoes. You might want to cut them into smaller, bite-sized pieces, as the large wholes can be a little cumbersome when eating.

***Tip: Don't throw away your sun-dried tomatoes, refer to our "Let's not waste anything!" page, and check out few ideas on how to use them.

As with all the other recipes we put on this site, this is meant to be easy to follow. We are hobby chefs who love to cook, and we are always up for learning new techniques. If you know of anything in this recipe which can be done a different way, whether for increased ease of preparation or better taste, please add a comment below!

Whipped up by Shyamal Addanki

Sun-dried Tomato and Chorizo Cookies

I made empenadas one day (recipe coming soon) and thought to myself that the dough would work well for some savoury appetizer cookies. These can be a refreshing change from chips and peanuts when you have some people over for drinks, and it is rare enough that most people will be impressed by the effort. Go on, admit it. When you read "Sun-dried tomatoes and chorizo COOKIES" you went "Whaaa?!"

For the first attempt, I decided to go with sun-dried tomatoes and chorizo, because that is what I had in the fridge. Naturally, you can experiment with variations, and I am definitely going to be doing these more often with other ingredients. Mmmm ... bacon anyone?

This recipe will yield about 25-30 cookies, depending on how big you make them.

Ingredients:

• 2 cups of all-purpose flour
• 1/4 teaspoon of salt
• 125 grams butter
• 1/2 cup of grated parmesan
• 1 egg
• 3 tablespoons water
• 6-7 sun-dried tomatoes*
• About 1 cup of chopped dry chorizo*

Preparation Time: 45 minutes
Cooking time: 15 minutes

The amount of sun-dried tomatoes and chorizo is really variable, depending how strong you want your cookie. For my chorizo, I was using cured dried chorizo, so it did not have to be cooked. If  you need to cook your chorizo first, make sure you let the chorizo sit on some paper towels to absorb all that oil, you want you chorizo to be as dry as possible. 

Start by cutting up your chorizo into small pieces. Chorizo is notoriously difficult to get into small pieces due to its oils, at least get them into chocolate-chip-sized bits. Set them aside for later.

Next, chop up your sun-dried tomatoes. Again, there is so much oil (unless you have fresh sun-dried tomatoes) that you really want to drain them first. Again, set them aside while we start the dough.

The dough is really simple. Unlike pastry dough and pizza dough, we do not need to work this too much (yay!). If you are like me and working with dough scares you, rest assured that this is the easiest dough to make.

In a large bowl, mix your flour, salt and parmesan.

Add your butter, cut into small cubes, the egg, and the 3 tablespoons of water to the flour/salt/parmesan mixture.

Work the dough with your hands, mixing it all up until it gets ... well, dough-y.

Now add the sun-dried tomatoes and chorizo. I didn't add them earlier because I wanted the butter, flour, egg and water to mix well by themselves first. This way, if anything was a bit off, I could see it and correct the problem without the oils of the sun-dried tomatoes and chorizo confusing me.

Its time to get your hands dirty. Put away the spatula and with both your hands, work the sun-dried tomatoes and chorizo into the dough. Really get them in there, fold the dough over the filling and press it in, then fold it over again and continue. There will be pieces that fall out of the ball, just pick them up and work them back in. Be merciless. They are your prisoners, don't let anyone escape.

The oils will also seep into the dough and spread the flavours around, and you should end up with a ball of dough that looks like this:

Place it in a bowl, cover it with film and let it rest in the fridge for 30 mins. Meanwhile, preheat your oven to 210 degrees Celsius (410 Fahrenheit).

After 30 mins are up, take your dough out of the fridge and roll it into small balls, then flatten and place on a cookie sheet.

After I was done with this recipe, I felt I should have made my cookies even thinner, otherwise they feel quite heavy. This is how thick I made mine ... so go thinner than this:

Finally, bake them in the oven for about 15 mins, or until they are nicely browned.

Et, voila! Serve to impress ...

*Tip: Don't throw away your unused sun-dried tomatoes or chorizo, refer to our "Let's not waste anything!" page, and check out few ideas on how to use them.

As with all the other recipes we put on this site, this is meant to be easy to follow. We are hobby chefs who love to cook, and we are always up for learning new techniques. If you know of anything in this recipe which can be done a different way, whether for increased ease of preparation or better taste, please add a comment below!

Whipped up by Shyamal Addanki