Super comforting, nourishing, delicious and on the table in less than half an hour. What more could you want from a bowl of food, I ask you?
If you have arborio rice and a tin of tomatoes in the pantry, you can make this. And once you make it, I’m sure you’ll make it again and again!
You can, of course, use fresh tomatoes in place of tinned if you prefer and have them handy, but personally I find the slightly concentrated flavour of the tinned ones adds so much to the richness of the dish - and evokes the canned tomato soup flavour of childhood that many of us find very comforting. In these strange times, comfort is something to prioritise, not just in cooking.
You don’t need to add cheese if you don’t have any or prefer not to, but little cherry bocconcini are a particularly good addition - a forkful of creamy, sweet and tangy rice combined with those delicious strings of melted mozzarella, it’s like a margarita pizza in a bowl!
Tinned tomato risotto
Serves 4 moderate appetites or 2 extremely hungry bushwalkers
Olive oil
1 onion, finely chopped
1 large garlic clove, finely chopped
A few large silverbeet stalks, chopped (reserve the leaves for later) [this is optional, I grow silverbeet so put it in everything]
2-3 teaspoons dried oregano and basil, or to taste
50g butter
2 cups arborio or carnaroli rice
Splash of red wine, white wine or cooking sherry (or even red wine vinegar at a push)
2 tablespoons tomato paste
1 x 420g tin peeled plum tomatoes
1 litre boiling hot vegetable stock, plus a little extra
Spinach leaves, silverbeet leaves, fresh basil or oregano, to serve
A handful of cherry bocconcini (or substitute any other cheese you have, ricotta is very nice)
A handful of grated Parmesan cheese, to serve
Salt and black pepper, to taste
Fill your kettle and put it on to boil.
Get a large saute pan - I use my Le Creuset shallow casserole dish, but I have made this kind of risotto in a stockpot before, just make sure you have a lid - and add a splash of olive oil and place over a medium heat. Add the onion, garlic and chopped silverbeet stalks and cook until they start to soften.
Add your dried herbs and butter, and once the butter has melted but not coloured, add the rice and turn up the heat. Get the rice coated in the butter. Keep an eye on everything so it doesn’t start to stick or burn but it’s crucial to have the heat high at this point.
Add a generous splash of wine and the pan should sizzle! Stir quickly to coat everything. Add the tomato paste and tin of tomatoes. You can use whatever tinned tomatoes you have but I prefer the whole plum ones because they have great flavour. You can break the tomatoes down with your wooden spoon as you stir.
Get your stock made and then pour a splash into the pan, as you would normally with a risotto. Stir well. Then add the rest of the boiling hot stock, maybe even rinse out the tomato can with boiling water and add that too. You can always cook excess liquid off, but a risotto with insufficient liquid is a disaster!
Stir well, ensure the rice and tomato mixture is entirely covered by hot stock and liquid. Bring to the boil. Add salt and pepper if you like (I often do it here and at the end). Stir one more time to ensure nothing is caught at the bottom and then reduce the heat to a simmer, put the lid on and set your timer for 20 minutes.
This is very unlike the traditional method of making risotto, but once you’ve successfully mastered cooking it this way, you’ll never go back!
You can come back and stir it occasionally if you like, but otherwise after 20 minutes it will be pretty much there. The liquid should have reduced (you still want some liquid, you don’t want it completely dry) and the rice should be tender.
Turn the heat off. Add your green leaves and fresh herbs and any cheese you’re using, and stir through to melt the cheese and wilt the leaves. You can leave it with the lid on again for a few minutes to do this if you like.
Taste and season, serve in wide bowls with a scattering of Parmesan on top and a few basil leaves if you have them.
Deeply satisfying and delicious, this risotto (or a variation thereof) makes an appearance at our table at least once a week. I hope you love it as much as we do!
