Risotto

A typical backpack traveller in Australia lives on some $2 a meal or even less depending what state you are in and the grocery stores available. The cheapest ones so far is Adelaide and Sydney from my experience. Patriots from each state would react otherwise. For me, I only trust Coles but was told that the cheapest was Aldi’s but you have to be lucky to get a hostel near the latter. I am quite picky about my hostels, not with the amenities, but with the kind of travellers they attract. Some tends to attract rough and dodgy ones while others are simply magnets to The Lost Boys of Never-Never Land. These hostels are usually rustic and repulsive from a distance but you would be surprised how better they are from the well maintained ones. After all, travelling is not about comfort but experience. A close encounter with character. A dance with the devil under the pale moonlight.

A typical meal would be instant noodles but I have seen industrious ones that would make it a point to eat healthy salads and fruit. A hostel meal doesn’t have to be boring nor does it have to be expensive. You just need to get out of the box and not fuzz about it. You are travelling and will get your healthy fix when you get back home.

In Melbourne, Nomads All Nations provide free pasta and rice all day including coffee and sugar. Chances are, you will see free items in the fridge, that is groceries left behind by travellers moving on the tourist trail. For Hostel Risotto, you will need the following:

Rice 1cup free

Garlic Mince 2pieces $2 for a bag which will last your some two weeks or check the free section of the fridge

Onions 1pieces $2 for a bag which will last you some two weeks or check the free section of the fridge

Butter 150g $1.50 for 250g Coles Brand

Canned Mussels 1can $2.30

Cream 100ml $2 Coles Brand

Cask Wine White 100ml $12 for 7 Litres which you will drink at night anyways

Salt 10g $1.50 for a 1kg bag or try asking a fellow traveller

Pepper 2g $2.30

Makes Two Serves

1. On high heat, put 50g of butter in a hot pan until it melts with still a bit of bubble simmering

2. Sautee garlic and onions until it turns to an aromatic pulp known as a sofrito.

3. Add 1 cup of the free rice and sauté until it becomes like pearl

4. Deglaze with 100ml cask white wine

5. Add 2 cups of hot salted water (one ladle at a time) mixing the risotto until water is cooked off (you will get a creamy finish at the end of the process)

6. Take of the heat and add 100g of more butter on the risotto (let the remaining heat do the melting and mix thoroughly with the risotto base)

7. In a separate pot, reduce cream with canned mussels until you reach a good thick reduction. That should infuse the taste of the mussels in the reduction as well

8. Turn of the heat and add your risotto base to the reduction and serve on a flat plate (I doubt if you will find any pasta bowl in the hostels)

You may save the second serve for the next meal or try to pick up another traveller with the second plate (hehe!)

Make sure you drink the rest of the cask wine in the evening. Don’t be square and mingle with other travellers.

Bon Appetite!

Rice is the staple of most countries in Asia, South America, Africa as well as a major farinaceous dish in European Cuisine particularly Italian which they call Risotto. In the early years of my career as a chef, I stumbled into a lot of Asian cooks who would angrily tell me what to do yet only knew how to cook rice in one way which was steaming. In my teen years in the Philippines, I would bump into pinoys who thought that rice was too complicated to cook for a rich kid to know yet again confined to the lone method of steaming. Duh!

Steaming rice in itself are done in various ways. The most popular among the pinoys is the method of measuring the amount of water with the middle finger from the surface of the rice pile up to the first line of the same finger. This is quite a quick way as you need not measure the amount of rice. Fill the pot to just half (that will leave enough space for the rice expand to double in size) and apply the middle finger measuring procedure. From my experience, this method doesn’t work well with small amounts of 1 or 2 serves and leaves too much water in the rice leaving it tasting like dried congee. My preferred method is to measure the rice at a ratio of 1:1 meaning a cup of water to every cup of rice. The finish is a nice moist and al dente. This finish is the method of steaming for those into western dishes like steak, roasts and grills. Also, this method is only possible with long grain rice or basmati. Arborio would be too creamy and starchy for this method.

The easiest method, and more popular in Australia, is by boiling that is cooking it like pasta. Fill up a pot with water and bring to a boil and drop your rice not anymore than a fourth of amount of water in the pot. Otherwise, your rice will finish steamed and result to a mushy and sticky rice pudding. Once the rice is cooked, drain the excess water. In my experience, this method is best to get rid of excess starch that makes rice too sticky. However, it tends to over cook the rice as well and upon cooling down after draining, this farinaceous meal tends to taste bland and heavy.

A more interesting method is the Pilaf, a method that probably originated from the Moors of North Africa. The ratio of rice to water is 1:1. Sautee some garlic and onions with salt and pepper in a pot until you smell the aroma and starts to glaze and form a “sofrito” then add the rice. For saffron pilaf rice, add saffron threads and bay leaves to the sofrito. For ginger saffron rice, add crushed ginger. Mix and sautee some more until the rice looks somewhat toasted and the aroma of the sofrito had mixed well into the rice. Pour the water in the pot at which you will hear the sizzle. Give the rice a little mix with a wooden spoon and scrape any rice or sofrito that might have glazed at the bottom of the pot. The sizzle you will hear is a part of the process in cooking known as “deglazing”, a method that originated in France where liquid is used to “deglaze” flavor that has “glazed” at the bottom of the pan during the initial cooking process. The interaction of the cold liquid and hot glazed items releases the caramelized food particles from the bottom of the pot where most of the flavor the from cooking have subsided. Allow the rice to simmer until the liquid has evaporated. Cover the pot and finish inside the oven at 180 degrees celsius for ten minutes.

More interesting though, because the same farinaceous item is sold at dear prices in mostly fine dining restaurants, is the Risotto. The secret to this dish is the creamy character of the arborio and lots of butter. For Mushroom Risotto, sautee some garlic and onions with oil and butter in a pan into a sofrito. Note that the oil is just to keep the butter from burning and should be kept at a minimum. Add the mushrooms and mix. Take note that you might have to add more oil as mushrooms absorb so much of it during the cooking process. Pour the rice and mix until you see them turn shiny and resemble pearls. Increase fire to glaze the mixture a bit more and pour about half to a cup of white wine to deglaze the bottom of the pan. Then add chicken stock at a ratio of 1:2 that is a cup of arborio to 2 cups of stock. Lower the fire and simmer until all the liquid evaporates. Then add heaps of butter and mix well into the risotto. Season with salt and pepper to taste. Take not not to touch the pan too much while simmering as it will somehow evaporate the liquid more quickly and end up with undercooked Risotto. Also, the finale of your Risotto is al dente, that is it is still chewy. Do not over cook it into congee even if your uneducated idiotic customers demand so. Add shaved parmesan to the final mix and more to the top plus parley to garnish. Don’t forget to pray and say grace for such an elegant dinner!