Cheesy Oozy Goodness: Risotto with Roasted Shallots, Portobello Mushrooms, Radicchio, and Parmesan

Once, when I was sick and miserable and bundled up on the couch, Chefly Husband came home and looked at me with love and pity.

"Can I make you some chicken soup?" he asked, holding up a can of Campbell's.

"No," I croaked. "Can you make me porcini risotto?"

And he did.

Mushroom risotto has held a special place in my heart ever since. The Wine Lover's Cookbook: Great Recipes for the Perfect Glass of Wine adds roasted shallots to the mix, and suggests you open some pinot noir.

Risotto with Roasted Shallots, Portobello Mushrooms, Radicchio, and Parmesan
Recommended Wine: Pinot Noir
Alternative Wine: Chardonnay

The earthy, slightly bitter flavors of this risotto are heightened by the forward fruit and similar earthy notes of the pinot noir. Interestingly, this dish matches almost equally well with chardonnay, providing a pleasing textural connection to the wine.

8 ounces whole shallots
3 tablespoons olive oil
Kosher salt and freshly ground black pepper
1 tablespoon unsalted butter
1/2 pound portobello mushrooms, diced (about 2 cups)
1/2 cup chopped yellow onions
1 1/2 cups Arborio rice
1 tablespoon chopped fresh thyme (1/2 tablespoon dried)
1/2 cup white wine
4-5 cups hot chicken stock
1 3/4 cups loosely packed chopped radicchio
1 cup seeded, chopped tomatoes
3/4 cup grated Parmesan cheese
Garnish: minced chives

Preheat oven to 350°F. Trim ends of shallots. Peel off outer brown layer and discard. Halve shallots, coat with 1 tablespoon olive oil and sprinkle lightly with salt and pepper. Wrap shallots loosely in foil and roast for 65 minutes. Keep wrapped in foil until ready to serve.

In a large sauté pan over medium heat, heat remaining olive oil and butter. Add mushrooms and onions and sauté for 2 to 3 minutes, stirring frequently. Add rice and thyme and continue cooking for 4 to 5 minutes, stirring frequently. Carefully add wine (it may steam up when poured into hot pan) and simmer to evaporate. Start adding stock in 1/2-cup increments and slowly stir until mostly evaporated. Cook until al dente.

Stir in radicchio and tomatoes. Cook for 1 to 2 minutes more to wilt radicchio slightly. Stir in Parmesan.

Serve very hot in soup bowls, garnished with shallots and minced chives.

Serves 6 as an appetizer or 4 as an entrée.

Risotto isn't noodles, but I'd still say to hell with trying this as an appetizer. Serve it as your entrée, folks.

Normally, I prefer virgin Chardonnay, with all the crispness that comes from aging only in steel. For this, though, I think you need to break out a buttery, oaky Chard. Something that will feel a bit creamy on the palate, like the risotto does. If all you have is unoaked, though, it'll still taste good.

Pinot noir was basically built to go with mushrooms, so you can't hardly go wrong there.

And, Parmesan. I promise, if you choose to use more than 3/4 a cup, I won't rat you out. But, use the real stuff, not something in a canister. You'll thank me later.

The Great Raisin Divide: Creamy Rice Pudding

My sister suggested that I hit a different region for each recipe this week, and so today, we'll go to New England. The County Fair Cookbook highlights the Fryeburg Fair, in Fryeburg, Maine. It's held the first week in October containing the first Wednesday in October (wrap your head around that one), and runs for 8 days. It's on Route 5, in western Maine, near the New Hampshire border. October in New England? Go for the foliage, stay for the fair. Evidently, they have the biggest set up for campers after Disney World, so if you feel a need to camp, you're all set.

When I think of "pudding," I tend to think of instant Jell-o pudding. Take powder (chocolate or butterscotch, in my head), take cold milk, beat or shake for two minutes, eat. I have some bad memories of other puddings in hospital cafeterias...tapioca, bread, rice... Thankfully, all of these have been redeemed by eating them, you know, not in hospital cafeterias.

My Grandmother's Creamy Rice Pudding

Rose Robinson, Loretta [Greene]'s grandmother, lived on a small farm in South Paris, Maine. "This is the version as it's been passed down," says Loretta.

Serves 4

1 cup white rice
1 cup cold water
4 cups whole milk
1/2 cup sugar
1/2 teaspoon salt (optional)
1/2 cup raisins (optional)
Few drops lemon extract

1. Boil the rice and water until the water is absorbed.
2. Add the milk, sugar and salt, and the optional raisins. Simmer uncovered over low heat (or on the back of a wood-burning stove) until most of the milk is absorbed and the rice is tender. Stir in the lemon extract.

First of all, the salt is not optional. Salt makes things taste better, folks, and a small amount of salt in your dessert is going to make it taste lovely. It won't taste like a salt lick. It's half a teaspoon, for pity's sake. Use the salt.

Here's where I'll lose some of you, here on the banks of the Great Raisin Divide. The raisins are not optional. Oh, sure, you could substitute some chopped up dried apricots or apples or dates, if you ran out of raisins, but you need the dried fruit in this to make it more than, well, milky rice without raisins. Raisins are nature's candy. Raisins are essential. You will miss it if you don't have the little bit of yielding chewiness.

I know, I know. Some of you hate raisins. I weep for the future, sometimes. But I stand by my beliefs, here on the proper side of the G.R.D. Just as I know the cheese is never optional, the raisins are never optional here at Take One Cookbook.

As for the wood stove reference, evidently Loretta cooks on a wood stove throughout the fair, in a display of old-time farm crafts, and also at home. Yes, by choice.

Dishes to Tote; Savory Sausage Rice

I think that nearly everyone who goes to many potluck events succumbs, eventually, to potluck fatigue. You know what I mean -- you have one dish that you go to over and over. You're always the one who brings the Polynesian chicken. Or the green bean casserole. Or the chilled tortellini on skewers to dip in a chilled tomato vodka sauce. (That's my fallback.)

How can you get out of this rut? Adopt someone else's fallback, like this one from the Milwaukee Ward Relief Society Cookbook:

Savory Sausage Rice
Pat Diehnelt

Once our family was on a test group for the Farm Journal magazine. They sent this recipe to be tested. Our family enjoyed it very much. Later they published it in their cookbook under "Dishes to Tote". Usually I take this to pot luck suppers.

2 lb. bulk sausage
1 c. finely chopped green pepper
3/4 c. chopped onion
2 1/2 c. coarsely chopped celery
2 (2 1/8 oz.) pkgs. chicken noodle soup mix
4 1/2 c. boiling water
1 c. uncooked rice
1/2 tsp. salt
1/4 c. melted butter or margarine
1 c. blanched almonds (slivered)

Brown suasage in large skillet; pour off excess fat. Add green pepper, onion and 1 c. celery; saute. Start the second paragraph at same time as this.

Combine soup mix and boiling water in large saucepan; stir in rice. Cover and simmer 20 minutes or until tender. Add sausage mix and salt; stir. Pour into greased baking dish, about 9x12 inches. Sprinkle remaining celery over top; drizzle with melted butter. Bake at 375° 20 minutes. Makes 10 servings.

If almonds are used, saute' all celery with green pepper and onion. Mix most of almonds with other ingredients; save a few to sprinkle on top. Omit melted butter.

I try very hard to avoid introducing typographical errors into the recipes here at Take One Cookbook... That being said, I also try to preserve the recipes -- so "suasage" stays, as does the close-quotation-period construction that makes me cringe so.

I'm not sure why they're using chicken noodle soup mix instead of stock (or, being a 1970s/1980s cookbook, bouillon cubes), but I'm willing to give it a go. I'm also not sure why we should omit the tasty melted butter if we're having almonds. Butter is good! Butter is tasty! I'm amused by the 1/2 t. of salt; on the face, that doesn't seem like much for a recipe that feeds 10, but considering there's sausage AND soup mix going on, I'm sure there's ample salt.

Most folks aren't going to have a baking dish that's "about 9x12 inches." I'm betting you have a 9x13 dish handy, though.

Farm Journal Magazine is still going strong; I did a search for "recipe," and think if I go off to recommend the best to you, I'll never come back, I'll just fall in to reading recipes and end up going another few days without a post. (My apologies for missing recently.)

It's time we say goodbye to the ladies of the Milwaukee Ward Relief Society. There's a trove of stuff we didn't touch -- kids sharing their mom's recipes (ha!), pages of substitutes for alcohol in various recipes, soap recipes, kitchen wisdom, leftover hints, and how long everything will keep in the fridge or freezer. The book is more than a little dated, and definitely a product of an LDS committee (see: alcohol substitutes), but a good go-to cookbook, especially for novice cooks who want something that feels homey.

When Is A Sundae Not A Sundae?: Chinese Sundae

Sometimes, if an item resembles another item in any way, it will take the name of what it resembles. Take, for example, the Appletini -- an Apple Martini that is apple-y, and alcoholic, and served in a cocktail glass, but is in no way a combination of gin and vermouth. Or, take this recipe, from the Milwaukee Ward Relief Society Cookbook:

Chinese Sundae
Carol Meyer

Make sundae in following order:

1. Rice
2. Chow mein noodles
3. Chopped chicken
4. Chicken gravy
5. Chopped tomatoes
6. Chopped celery
7. Grated cheese
8. Chopped green onions
9. Pineapple chunks
10. Coconut
11. Chopped almonds
12. Maraschino cherries

So... this could go in a sundae glass. Sure. And it's different food substances, layered together. It has pineapple. Coconut. Nuts. It's topped with a cherry.

Other than that, it sounds like a hot nightmare. I was going along with it until item 4. Chicken gravy? Oh, no... And cheese? In a "Chinese" dish? I'm skeptical.

I wonder... if we took out the gravy, and layered the chow mein noodles a little higher up, how this would work out. Ditch the cheese. And the cherry. Use a little soy for moisture, if needed, or, heck, some plum sauce or duck sauce. There's got to be potential for layering stuff like a sundae for dinner.

The 1980 publication date hides the fact that these recipes are very, very, very 1970s.

Cooking the Books: Mulatto Rice

For all my thoughts of The Savannah Cook Book's Mulatto Rice as "pantry food," I must confess I had no bacon in the house, no onions, and no rice.

The last one isn't quite true. I've heaps of arborio, and piles of sushi rice, and various bits of basmati and jasmine. That said, I had no long grain white rice.

I hopped over to my local Safeway and got my supplies, and headed home to make a mess of food.

I cooked the rice separately, because I wanted to save time, and also because I was highly suspicious of the recipe -- I didn't think there'd be enough liquid in a pint of tomatoes to cook a pint of rice, and frankly, I didn't want to stand over it, fretting and fussing and wondering if I should add water or stock until it was done.

I recommend this method, also recommend that you use stewed tomatoes if you do the "I'm in a hurry" method. Diced tomatoes hold on to their acidity if they're just warmed through, and the acidity is not a welcome companion here.

I used a whole 12 oz. package of bacon, and removed just a touch of the rendered fat. After I removed the bacon (to drain crisp on a paper towel lined plate), I chucked in the diced onion and saw the white white onion take up the little black specks, and thought again about the "touched by a tarbrush" idiom -- such things one can learn in one day.

You don't need to add salt or pepper -- the bacon and bacon fat bring all the seasoning to the dish.

It's simple. It's homey. It's tasty. It's definitely worth cooking up, and makes me curious about cooking more recipes from The Savannah Cook Book (even if the descriptions and recipe titles are cringingly racist).

Mulatto Rice

One of the recipes The Savannah Cook Book is known for is Mulatto Rice. Evidently, it plays a big part in "Their Eyes Were Watching God," and people who want to know more about the dish end up finding Ms. Colquitt's tome. If the dish name makes you a little uncomfortable, well, wait 'til you read the introductory sentence.

Mulatto Rice

This is the very chic name given to rice with a touch of the tarbrush.

Fry squares of breakfast bacon and remove from the pan. Then brown some minced onion (one small one) in this grease, and add one pint can of tomatoes. When thoroughly hot, add a pint of rice to this mixture, and cook very slowly until the rice is done. Or, if you are in a hurry, cold rice may be substituted, and all warmed thoroughly together.

Originally when I decided on posting this recipe, I thought I'd lead into it with a bit of an excerpt about Pilaus, because it, again, speaks indulgently and patronizingly about "the old cooks" and "our admiring imitators," but I think there's plenty to wrestle with with Mulatto Rice.

Before reading this recipe, I don't think I'd ever heard or read the phrase "a touch of the tarbrush." It sent off alarms -- there's something going on here, surely. But it couldn't mean what I think it means...right? Perhaps it just means that the onions and the rice get dark from the frying...?

Yeah, no. It's as unappealing as can be. Really, the lead in to the next recipe, Mexican Rice," should have made it clear without me doing more web research. ("This seems to be a sort of first cousin to the dark horse above.")

And I still can't get past the idea that "Mulatto Rice" is somehow a "chic" name; what the hell were they calling it before they called it this? No, wait; don't tell me. I doubt I'll like it.

Stepping away from the socio-linguistic meltdown going on in my head, let's look at the recipe itself...

...this looks good. It looks easy. It looks like a pantry dinner -- using staples to quickly feed the household. And, really, bacon fat is always a good thing.

My husband, Nick, and friend, Mab, both asked if I was going to cook anything to go along with these blog posts; I've decided to cook one of the recipes a week. This week, I'm going to make Mulatto Rice (only in part because I don't really have a social occasion on the books that would call for gallons of Chatham Artillery Punch). I'll share the results here.

Is it wrong that I want to throw shrimp in this?