purple rice (blueberry mushroom risotto)
sales pitch
Okay, so you had to be convinced about strawberry risotto.
But you tried it. [Right?!] And you liked it. [Right?!] So once you open up the door to
one fruit, it's no big deal to let another one sneak in. [Right?] Meanwhile we are
reminded that the king vegetable of Italian cuisine, the tomato, is technically a fruit!
[Out of the closet, you fraud!] So here's another delicious exotic risotto to impress your
dinner guests with, namely, blueberry mushroom risotto [risotto con funghi e mirtilli!]
from a fashion magazine.
history
We're experiencing a cultural explosion here on the Main Line (western Philly suburbs)
these days. Two new book superstores in our town alone, with a super alternative video
store, and a great new Tuscan Italian restaurant with brick oven pizzette. A new high tech
supermarket down the Pike (Lancaster) at the exit of our new superhighway, the Blue Route
(destination IKEA!). A new wholesome food supermarket a bit farther west (followed by
another branch in the east). A new Mediterranean Lebanese restaurant not far in the other
direction. Etc. etc.
So we were book browsing in the west end super bookstore with some international astro
guests. dr bob was in the math book section for a change (from the cookbook section of
course). ms ani was magazine browsing fashion magazines. Which are occasionally covering
some fashionable food. This one was courtesy of some expatriate Italians living in
Australia who had tried it in Venice. Their recipe called for a third of a
"punnet" of blueberries, which our Scotch-Canadian female astro guest said was
either a basket or rare unit only used for berries in British English, of unknown
quantity. Our Cambridge Italian-English Dictionary says it's a little basket of fruit
(retranslated from Italian). We just guessed.
the test
So we finally had a night free to cook and stopped at the supermarket on the way home
for the only ingredient left to acquire: fresh mushrooms. This had been a big fruit summer
for us with a near constant supply of cheap kiwis (which later became year round), and not
so cheap strawberries and blueberries to keep our banana and overpriced breakfast cereal
company every morningso the blueberries were already on hand. But this was to be our
first crack at the new supply of arborio rice personally imported from Rome several months
earlier. Two 1 kilo boxes in a plastic bag purchased at a small fraction of the local
outrageous price for the stuff. But with one small catch. The kitchen shelf time for our
imported rice has always been longer than the life cycle of the dreaded starch bugs which
had invaded us earlier in the year. Getting into everything starchy in our cabinets. This
rice had its own contingent to add to the ranks. Except dr bob, after instructions from
the ms, sifted and shook the rice a bit at a time over the sink like the old gold rush
prospectors searching for gold, picking out the more agile specimens when necessary, while
ms ani did most of the testing of the purple rice recipe.
ingredients
our list |
|
the original quantities |
|
|
|
base |
|
|
1 c arborio rice |
|
500g (about 2 c) |
2 T olive oil, roughly |
|
3 T |
1 medium onion, finely chopped |
|
1 |
addins |
|
|
1/2 lb mushrooms, sliced finely |
|
400 g (about 1 lb) |
salt and pepper to taste |
|
(say 1/2 t and 1/4 t) |
1 c blueberries (maybe 3/4 c) |
|
1/3 punnet? |
3/4 c dry white wine (125ml) |
|
250 ml |
1 veggie broth cube/paste for about 4 c broth |
|
7-8 simmering cups broth |
finishers |
|
|
1/3 c freshly grated parmesan |
|
2-3 T |
1 T butter |
|
1 T |
our instructions
- The astute reader will see that we downsized this recipe by a half. The unastute reader
will just keep on reading.
- By now you're old hands at this risotto stuff so a short version suffices. [Check out
another risotto recipe if you're not.] Start boiling about 4 cups of water in a teapot.
- Saut� the onion in olive oil until soft, then over high heat do the mushrooms until they
"give up their liquid" (?), accompanied by a lot of stirring activity. [We
suppose they must sweat heavily under duress, leading to a liquid accumulation in the
pan.]
- Add the salt and pepper and chopped up veggie cube/paste and continue stirring until the
given up liquid evaporates.
- Then stir in the blueberries and rice and stir around about 1 minute, then pour in the
wine and evaporate it. [A couple minutes.]
- Then add the boiling water a cup or half cup at a time, depending on your patience (half
cup is better) for about 3 1/2 cups.
- Do the al dente taste test at around 20 minutes of the boiling water phase.
- If passed (the test), remove from the heat, add the butter and cheese and stir it all
up.
- Serve immediately with freshly ground pepper and parmesan cheese at the table.
notes
- Risotto Rosa con Funghi, Australia Vogue
Aug/Sep 93, p.141.
- purple trivia. The first record dr bob bought himself as a teenager was Jimi
Hendrix, Smash Hits, with the cut Purple Haze. A live rendition of which he just missed at
Woodstock, the Event. But which he caught in Woodstock, the movie. And dr bob saw Purple
Rain, the movie, when it first came out and Prince was still just Prince. And he first
discovered purple potatoes at a Philly food fair (Book and the Cook). Now available at our
super whole foods supermarket. [See purple potato salad.] Maybe yours too. What does this
have to do with this recipe? Absolutely nothing.
- For another purple risotto, see purple rice
II: risotto with radicchio, chianti and gorgonzola.
- 2006 Update. 13 years later Australia Vogue is lost in the dust bin of history
by now, as are Toscana Cucina Rustica (now Bianca) and Marbles (now Citron)
in Bryn Mawr, but the TLA Video store is still going strong, and many other
new and worthy restaurants have opened. The stach bugs are a dim memory now
that arborio rice is everywhere. And
blueberry
mushroom risotto is still a
"down under"
hit on search engines (also new since 1993), although it credits European origins, while
apparently Philadelphia's Italian food guru Marc Vetri has discovered the
sauce for pasta applications, as recounted offhandedly by Philly Inquirer
food writer Rich Nichols on March 23, 2006. However, Google has arrived in
the intervening years to help us with the definition of the punnet as an
almost
unit:
punnet
a small square or sometimes rectangular container for fruit or vegetables,
such as strawberries or bean sprouts. When used as a unit of measure, a
punnet is generally the same thing as a dry pint in the U.S. or an Imperial
pint in Britain; see pint [1] above. However, grocers use punnets of several
sizes to package berries, fresh mushrooms, etc.
- 2009 Update. Australian Vogue
now is alive on the internet but the food business is rough. Bianca and Citron are
both gone, the high tech supermarket in St Davids which was a
local family chainhas long
since sold out to Safeway, not a happy fate for us, but finally digital
photos arrive for this recipe with a revisit this year. And
Prince has been
Prince again for some time. Meanwhile a famous
Italian only reference cookbook,
The Silver Spoon, is finally translated
into English and published in 2005, and it has a very simple blueberry
(without mushrooms) recipe on p.329, which a Google search turned up at the
Recipe Zaar.
We bought the book but never had the time to browse through it. Nothing like
electronic searches compared to old fashioned leafing through cookbooks. The
search on the keywords "blueberry mushroom risotto" leads to many hits, but
putting quotes around them to accept only that word order makes our recipe
the number one hit. This has to be our number one risotto recipe too. Don't
take our word for it. Give it a try and you'll be convinced.
- 2019 Update. dr bob's
Old Town Blue Corelle Ware dishes are now 40 years old---lightweight and
indestructible (nearly, except when it hits wrong and explodes). They made
national television in 2018 on the dinner table of the revived Roseanne Barr
show before it got cancelled due to inappropriate Tweeting. Portraying a
working class family just making it, like dr bob's family story. Meanwhile
reasonably priced blueberries are nearly always available, and they are a
SUPERFOOD! We always have them on hand for breakfast cereal garnishing
trying to achieve those impossible 5 servings of fruit per day. And this
risotto is still super delicious!
- Illustrations available.