This risotto is a danishification of a nice recipe I have got from Sigrid at CavolettoDiBruxelles.it. It happened that I was supposed to make Sigrid’s dish one evening and I was missing some of the ingredients. So I have used what I had at home: apples from my little garden and beer instead of white wine for the post toasting phase of the rice. Italians would shout “sei matto!!”. I know it’s a big scandal. But at least I have used a very nice beer from Aarhus: The “Klosterbryg” meaning the brew from the monastery (in Italian “convento”). It’s a handmade brew, at least this is what its nice designed label says. It has a quite special taste, I haven’t been thought a sommelier course so far, but I would say it’s a “corposo”, full-bodied taste.

The apple from my tree are quite sour so I thought it was a nice idea to add some dill. Both for balancing the taste and for making it more Scandinavian as possible!

If it’s your first risotto I suggest you to read al least my previous post about a basic risotto
where I have explained all the phases for the perfect risotto into details (soffritto, tostatura, resting and mantecatura)

INGREDIENTS for 4 people
- 200g of RISO CARNAROLI (Carnaroli Rice …please!)
- 1 leek (porre, porro, allium ampeloprasum)
- 1 green pepper
- 1 bottle of Klosterbryg from Aarhus Bryghus (fridge cooled)
- 1 litre of water
- 40g of butter
- 4 tea spoons EXTRA VIRGIN OLIVE OIL
- 50g Parmigiano Reggiano Cheese
- celery, onion, carrot, laurel for the stock
- some fresh dill

If you can’t find that specific beer I feel very sorry for you. It’s a very nice beer. I guess you might use a dark beer, maybe a Ceres Export, but don’t get me wrong. They are not the same at all.

Talking of pepper just because I am Italian and I can’t stand this misunderstanding anymore. Peperone is always a vegetable: a green, red or yellow pepper. Pepperoni (with 2 p) is a made up word that now is on the Oxford English dictionary. Anyway if you ask in Italy for a pepperone (with one, two, three or even four p) you will always get a vegetable and never a sort of salami. So don’t get piss with the waiter if you order a Ppeppperoni Pizza and then you won’t get any meat of sort on it. Next time just order a “pizza al salame piccante” and you won’t get “ripped off”

Video

Recipe

The stock, you need to start to prepare it 30 minutes before.
1. Peel and cut in two a couple of carrots
2. Clean the celery and make some incisions on it (it will release more taste into the stock)
3. Peel an onion. When I peel onions I always remember what my Sardinian friend Antonello once told me: “my mother trow away the first layer of it when peeling, and if my mother does so it mean it’s a must”
4. Put all the vegetable in 1l of water, add same salt, black pepper, and laurel
5. Let it boil for at least 30 minutes.

The risotto.
1. Open the beer. Fill up a glass and drink it.
2. Put 4 tea spoons of EXTRA VIRGIN OLIVE OIL, and 20g of Danish Butter Lurpak in a big pot. This mixing is a good trick to avoid the butter to release acrolein that is bad for your liver and to avoid to burn the oil.
3. Slice the leek in tiny tiny slices and fry it into the oil butter
4. Peel the green pepper as if it was a potato. Removing the peel makes it more digestible. Remove the white kernel and slice it in small cubes.
5. When the onion is soft but not burned add the rice into the pot and toast the rice.
6. After two minutes add a glass of beer and let the alcohol evaporate for circa 2 minutes
7. Add 3 ladle of stocks.
8. Add the chopped green pepper
9. From now on it is the same procedure you would use for every risotto. Just remember to pour 3 ladle of stock and stir now and then. Stirring is important in order to distribute the stock and the heat.
10. 5 minutes before the rice is ready, peel, slice and chop two apple and add them into the rice. You might want to save a couple of slices for the topping.
11. Add some small cubes of Parmigiano for the “mantecatura”.
12. When the rice is “al dente” e “all’onda” add some chopped dill. All’onda means wavy, in a way that if you tilt the plate the risotto ripples in waves.

Let it rest for 3 minutes and then serve with some grilled apple slices on the top.

This is the dish once known as rugbrød lasagna.

If you are not Danish then you must know that rugbrød is what pasta is for Italians. Many of my good Danish friends had some comments about the previous name. It sounds to me they were claiming that there was something wrong in putting together the 2 words “Lasagna” and “Rugbrød”. Ok, maybe is too early. I have renamed it into Millefoglie. That also describes, in Italian, something that is made of many layers. A little bit more posh maybe.

I had a funny conversation with a friend of mine visiting me in Copenhagen. He is a researcher, bio engineer working in the field of proteinomic. He was here with his “Big professor” and I don’t remember why the three of us ended up talking about the fact they had found out that beans and shrimps match together and create a nice taste. The day after I saw Simone Rugiati, on the sat TV channel Gambero Rosso, building up something with some bread slices.

Usually on Saturday or Sunday me and my girlfriend forget to eat a proper lunch. I don’t know why but we do it. So around 14 I usually make up what I call a “drastic solution” to my empty stomach. This dish is one of those. It looks simple but it’s very rich of fibres and proteins.

INGREDIENTS for 2 people
- 70g of white beans
- 70g of chickpea (kikærter)
- 1 red onion
- 1 litre of water
- laurel
- dill
- fresh timian
- 200g of shrimps
- 15 asparager
- rugbrød 8 slices
- EXTRA VIRGIN OLIVE OIL (you need a very good one!)

Video

Recipe
1. Boil in 1l of water the beans and the kikærter (I use the Danish word is more serious professional than chickpea) with the onion and some laurel. It needs to boil for circa 1 hour.

2. Start the oven at around 200 C.

3. Slice 2 slices of rugbrød in small cubes. Put them in a baking pan.

4. Put a little bit of olive oil over a slice of rugbrød, some timinian and press it. Repeat 4 times.

5. Remove the border from the previous 4 slices and slice them. Put them together with the other small cubes.

6. Put some salt and timian in the baking pan, and put it in the oven.

7. Put in the oven the 6 slices of rugbrød. The don’t need too much, just get them a little bit crusty on one side but still soft.

8. The cubes of rugbrød need a little bit more in the oven, they have to be crunchy but not too dark and hard.

9. When the beans and the kikærter are almost ready add the chopped asparager. Save some asparagus tip for the topping. Wait 5 minutes and we are ready to go with the “vellutata”.

10. Remove the laurel leaves, you don’t want to blend it!

11. Now you have two options, either you go with a hand blander directly into the pot or you filter the content of the pot and save the stock, then you blend the content adding some stock, now and then, until you get a “velvet like” cream: vellutata. In the video I did the first one to make it less boring.

12. Prepare a layer of vellutata in a wide dish. Place some rugbrød cubes around and the first slice in the centre. Put some shrimps over the first slice. Cover with another slice and repeat until you get a three layers composition. Cover with dill and asparager tips. If you want add a little bit of oil “a filo” over the crunchy cubes. “A filo” means it should be like a tiny thread covering the food.

Funghi: pronunced fungki, with hard G like in Gitte, in danish “svamp”. Porcini: is a kind of svamp known in Scandinavia as “Karl Johan”, latin name: Boletus edulis.

Latin name is not here to show off, but because it’s easy to lookup vegetables in Wikipedia using the latin name. So let’s say you are Finnish or you are Chinese living in Finland: just look up Boletus edulis and you are ready to go to the greengrocer and ask for a “Herkkutatti”. Latin is the English of vegetables.

I will try to explain everything into small details so if you already know the basis of this religion you might find it little bit boring. Sorry but this is needed to pass the lore on. Making a good risotto is quite easy, the first time might taste terrible but then you learn and you will be able to master this science!

In Denamrk I have found Karl Johan svamp from China, they are ok! But, since I think it’s stupid to make svamp fly from the other side of the Earth, if you really want them from outside Denmark then let it be from the best place for risotto-svamp that would be the north of Italy: Trento is my favourite. (in Copehnagen you can find them in Super Marco, http://www.supermarco.dk/)

The kind of rice is extremely important, you can use:
- Riso Carnaroli (and I will respect you)
- Riso Roma (less respect)
- Riso Arborio (mmmm)
Others breeds of rice are strictly forbidden!

But if you are really in bad need of a risotto and there is no other option you can use grødris. Please never use other rice kind, like basmati or jasmin…
Try to look at the rice grain they are very different and basically absorb water in a different way, so it will taste different.

INGREDIENTS for 4 people
- 200g of RISO CARNAROLI (Carnaroli Rice)
- 1 porre (leek) or 2 forårsløg (spring onion) or 1 normal løg (onion), I like the porre.
- 1 glass of white wine (the worst of the world is perfect)
- 1 litre of water
- 40g of butter (maybe 50g ;-)
- 4 tea spoons EXTRA VIRGIN OLIVE OIL
- 50g Parmigiano Reggiano Cheese
- cellery, onion, carrot, laurel for the stock
- some persille with broad leaves. (you can skip this ingredient)

To make risotto you need 2 pots. A big one and a small one.

Mushrooms are usually dry, so start with putting them into a small cup with a little of water. We are going to reuse the water later.

1. The small one is for a good stock(bouillon):
1.1 Boil circa 1l of water, with some cellery (in danish selleri: the top of a branch, 5cm with leaves), 1 onion, a carrot. This should boil for at least 30 min before you start to do the rest. If you are in a hurry you could use 1 dice of Grønsags-bouillon (please no animal, so we keep risotto vegetarian proof!)

1.2 Add then 3-4 leaves of laurel (laurbær)

1.3 Leave it boil covered.

2. In the big pot (that you will never cover):
2.1 put 4 tea spoons of EXTRA VIRGIN OLIVE OIL, and 20g of Danish Butter Lurpak (so they get to know each other, the Mediterranean and the Scandinavian, international mixture is a good secret for tasty
food!).

2.2.Cut the porre (or springløg or simple løg) in super thin slices and put into the warm oil/butter (it should be warm, I would not put onion in cold oil/butter in this case).

2.3 In italian we say “make them sweat” (fare sudare) so basically you need to stir them while in the pot in order to avoid them to burn. (max 2 min, but even less)

2.4 Add the rice it into the pot. What we need to do now is to toast it, so it gets ready to be cooked. Toast it for 3 min, remember: keep on stiring so nothing gets burn.

2.5 Pour 1 glass of white wine (it can be of the worst kind) and make the alcohol evaporate, if you are Swedish and think that is a terrible sin, you can always sniff it from the top of the pot. I love it! The
complete evaporation happen after 2 minutes.

2.6 Put 2 ladle of bouillon (less than 2 tea cups) in the pot.

2.7 Put some salt (possibly marine salt, the Læsø salt is fantastic, Maldon is good, Sicilian would be the one that every Italian would use for risotto, and it is very good as well) and some pepper. Wait that the water has been absorbed by the rice, but not completely.

2.8 Put some more bouillon, never more than 2 tea cups and let it absorb, but not completely. There must always be water in the pot.

2.9 Repeat 2.8 until the rice is almost ready (taste it, it should be al dente). It would take some time, in mean while you could add to the bouillon the water from the svamp (if you feel like = you are sure the svamp were clean.). The secret is to take care of the rice adding little by little some water circa every 2 - 5 minutes.

2.10 When almost ready put the svamp into the pot.

2.11 Now you can wait to be 100% ready (taste it) and you can add more water if it is getting too dry. It must be served “all’onda”, “on the wave”, so it means that it should not be too liquid but not too solid. If you tilt the plate it should do some tiny ripples.

2.12 Add some thin chopped persille, just to add a fresh touch, not too much. (you can skip this ingredient)

2.13 Let it rest and cut the Parmigiano Reggiano cheese into small cubes and put it into the pot.

2.14 Put 20g of butter into the pot (the cheese and butter procedure is called “mantecatura” if you want a lighter version you can skip the butter). Manteca is Spanish for butter. It is said that this process was originally adopted during the Spanish ruling of Lombardia (Milano region) during the Renaissance. You have to beat the rice and shake the pot in order to emulsify it and reach the right texture.

When your arm hurts the mantecatura is completed. You can serve the risotto!

This recipe is a secret. But I really like the picture so it’s here, maybe some day I will publish the recipe as well.

This is my food foto blog.

I cook mainly Italian food in the kingdom of Danmark. Mostly for personal pleasure and in order to accomplish the real Italian show-off best practice: “Fare una bella figura” with myself (for more info see B.Severgnini “An insider’s guide to the italian mind”).

The result is a mix of Scandinavian and Italian style.

The blog will be mainly in English, Danish e se mi gira anche in Italiano.

I have been living in Denmark for some years. I was born in Novara (northern Italy, Piemonte) and I had been living and studying in Milan for quite a while.

“Jeg laver mad” means “I cook” in Danish; and it’s what I do almost every evening when I come back from work. I have studied industrial design and now I develop 1to1 marketing application, I work mainly with Rails and Flash. Cooking helps me.

Food must be perfect. Cooking requires the uttermost attention.