You ooze, you lose – Taste Scene

Plans for my risotto were going well; I had pre-made some chicken stock, I had managed to save a glass of dry white wine from the night before and when I discovered a punnet of chestnut mushrooms when I was looking for white, I knew I was onto a winner. However, after my initial chopping of the sofrito was complete (as in the picture included) and I realised I had inadvertently been making an Irish risotto, I took the photo and sent it to a friend of mine who votes for the DUP. I included this caption: “Sorry, pal, looks like my dinner isn’t voting for your lot either in the May election.”

He replied, “Ah well. Looks like my lot aren’t voting for my lot either. What are you making anyway? Turkey ar la?”

To that, I replied with a series of tearful laughing emojis, mainly because I couldn’t think of how to reply (thank God for emojis!).

But no, I wasn’t making turkey ar la. I was making risotto carbonara and a double batch at that. The thinking was, I would use the left-overs to make arancini the next night. Alas, the best laid plans of mice and chubby cooks!

The sofrito chop though, was purely accidental, with the celery diced before the onion and then the carrot. Still, if pictures like that one elicit more wit from my DUP-voting friend, maybe I’ll have to make it a regular occurrence.

When the time came, the cooking of the risotto also went well. I softened the celery, onion and carrot in some butter and olive oil and by the time I started adding the stock (after I’d added the arborio rice and sizzled off the wine), surprisingly, I had exactly the right amount of stock as per the volume of rice. I was still onto a winner!

That evening’s dinner is the other picture included, the sumptuous rice was both fresh and rich and perfectly balanced with seasoning and a touch of lemon juice. There was grated parmesan within and without and topped with crispy bacon and some sliced and fried chestnut mushrooms, it was a joy to behold as well as eat.

I often hear chefs talking about the perfect risotto is one which slowly oozes towards the edge of the plate. Well, in my case and such was the delicacy of this risotto, it didn’t get a chance to do too much oozing.

“This arancini is going to be some gear tomorrow night,” I said aloud to myself.

The plan was, I was going to use the left-over risotto to make rice balls. Each of these rice balls would contain a small piece of mozzarella and a sun-dried tomato and then they would be dredged through egg and panko breadcrumbs before being fried. You may have noticed a distinct lack of said arancini on this page. Alas, there was also a lack of arancini in my life.

After the risotto was made and plates of it scoffed, I bowled up the left-over rice and covered it in clingfilm. But for some unknown reason, best known perhaps to my own stupidity, I forgot to put the bowl in the fridge.

As we all know, one has to be careful about eating left-over rice and the golden rule is, if you’re going to eat it, you have to get it into the fridge ASAP. In this case, the left-overs sat out all night on the kitchen worktop, slowly going bad or at least moving to a place beyond consumption.

This development I didn’t discover until the next day whereupon there was much grinding and gnashing of teeth to think that a huge portion of my beloved risotto had passed away. RIP. You might also be wondering what the other picture is, in place of the decadent arancini. That’s simple penne pasta with home-made basil pesto. That’s what we had in place of the arancini. And before my good friend from the DUP starts, it wasn’t nationalist pasta.