Smoked Mozzarella Risotto

Oh.My.God. Seriously, go make this risotto now. This was my favorite part of our Valentine's dinner. The crab cakes were good, the cake was good, but this risotto was fantastic. I have never made risotto, I'm not even sure I've ever ordered risotto... but I think its my new favorite side dish. This stuff is amazing. I'm already looking for other recipes and combinations to try so I can make more. I always thought this was a dish that was really finicky and took forever but it was actually extremely easy. Yes it takes a little while, but the wait is worth it. This probably took a little less than 30 minutes total.

This recipe is from Elly Says Opa and the only changes I made were using onion instead of shallot, slightly reducing the amount of sun-dried tomatoes and I left out the fresh basil since I didn't have any and used dried herbs. The recipe below reflects my changes. I also think that this serves 4 people as a side dish instead of 2 as we had leftovers for lunch the next day.



Smoked Mozzarella Risotto

1 T butter
1/2 small white onion, diced
2 cloves garlic, minced
1/2 cup arborio rice
1/4 cup dry white wine
3 cups chicken stock
1/4 cup sun-dried tomatoes
2 oz smoked mozzarella cheese (chop into small pieces)
1 tsp dried basil
1/2 tsp dried thyme
1/2 tsp freshly ground black pepper
Salt to taste

In a sauce pan, heat the 3 cups of stock over medium heat.

In a large skillet, melt butter over medium heat. When melted, add the onion and garlic and cook until onion is translucent, about 3 minutes. Add the rice and stir until well coated distributed. Toast the rice, stirring frequently for about 2 minutes. Add the wine and cook until reduced almost entirely.

Start adding broth, 1 ladle at a time, stirring the risotto frequently. Add another ladle of broth when the first addition is almost all absorbed. Continue this process until you've added all but the last of the broth. The rice should be creamy but still have a little bite to it. Add the sun-dried tomatoes with the last addition of broth and again cook until almost all absorbed.

Turn off the heat and add the cheese and all spices except the salt. Taste and add salt if necessary (I used low sodium chicken stock and between the stock and the cheese, didn't need anymore salt).