After harvesting our broad bean crop, it was time to show Kim a bit of culinary flare in the kitchen.  It was time to have a crack at Broad Bean and Chorizo Risotto.

Until today, I had never made this dish.  But as I am a dab hand at a very yummy mushroom risotto, so I thought that this would be a cinch.  It certainly was!

I adapted this recipe from a few that I found online, using ingredients that I had at hand.  Here is the result to share with you all.

Broad Bean and Chorizo Risotto

Serves 4

Ingredients

• 1 Cup Arborio Rice
• 2 Chorizo Sausages (I used Hot Sicilian Chorizo), sliced
• ½ cup white wine
• 350 gm double shelled Broad Beans
• 2 cloves Garlic, smashed
• 10 mint leaves, finely sliced
• Juice of 1 lemon
• 1 Leek, chopped
• 3 Chicken Oxo cubes
• 2 Tablespoons sour cream
• 1 litre water

Method

1. Fill kettle with water and bring to boil.
2. In a large pot, add chorizo and cook on medium heat for 4 minutes until brown.  Remove chorizo and set aside, leaving juices and fat in pot.
3. Add leek and garlic, and cook until translucent.
4. Add rice and stir well, until it changes colour and looks like little beads of glass.
5. Add wine and stir until it is absorbed by the rice.
6. Crumble Oxo cubes in your hand and sprinkle powder all over rice.  Pour in ½ cup of boiling water into pot and stir to avoid rice sticking to bottom of the pot.  As the water is absorbed, add another ½ cup until the water is used up.  This takes about 20 minutes.
7. The rice should be firm but tender to eat.  If not, add another ½ cup boiling water and continue to stir.  The rice should look plump, creamy, and ooze off the spoon when poured.
8. Turn off the heat, add back the chorizo, broad beans, lemon juice, sour cream, and mint.  Stir well, season with salt and freshly cracked black pepper.
9. Serve immediately.

Now just so you know, and before you make it, this dish is amazing.  It will blow your mind.

There were only four ingredients in this meal that did not come from my garden or were made by me.  They were the wine, sour cream, oxo cubes, and the rice, however we did have them in the stockpile cupboard or in the fridge.  Not a bad effort, even if I do say so myself!

Now if you haven’t double shelled fresh broad beans before, here is a tip.  Shell the bean from the pod, and follow these simple instructions.

Weigh out 100 gm of additional beans than stated in the recipe and place in a saucepan.  Pour in boiling water to the top of the beans and then using a high heat cook for 3 minutes only.  Drain, then rinse in cold water.  To shell the bean, use your thumbnail to make a nick or two in the outer layer, then simply squeeze out the inner bean.  Easy peasy, lemon squeezy.

So there you have it.  Another delicious meal, mainly from our garden.

Fresh from our suburban food farm.