Beef Risotto

I'm mostly a 'use what's in the fridge' or 'in season' type of person, I see what I have in my fridge or what's on offer in the supermarket and alter my recipes accordingly. This week, I bought beef cubes to do a chinese beef stew, and bought peppers and mushrooms for salad. But then I thought - hey, why not try a beef risotto instead? Would be a good alternative to my original chicken and mushroom risotto. Slightly charred beef with griiled peppers and mushrooms! Great idea.

Ingredients - Serves 21 packet of beef for stew, about 200-300g (Buy beef cuts for stew. You need something that softens with slow cooking, For instance, steak is pricey and hardens rather than gets soft with cooking.)
1 pepper/capsicum (I like only yellow and red ones, they are sweeter in taste than the green ones, and there's more capsicum and Vit A in them compared to the green ones)
1 punnet of fresh button or shitake mushrooms, sliced
1 Large white onion
3 - 4 cloves of garlic, crushed1 cup arborio rice (also known as risotto rice)Herbs: I like to use my 'shi da tian wang' mixture from the song Scarborough Faire. It's a good way to mix herbs for anything 'ang mo' tasting. So 1 teaspoon each of parsley, sage, rosemary and thyme. I also use nutmeg for the slight nutty flavour.
Freshly milled black pepper
Parmesan, grated
1 tbls soya sauce (this replaces salt. I prefer this because it gives a more uniform flavour compared to salt, where you can get pockets of salt if it's not mixed properly. Also, salt tends to draw out the juices from the beef during cooking, thus rendering it tough and tasteless)
1 tbls cornflour
3 glasses of red wine (optional)
1.5 ltr beef stock
Cooking oil and butter for cooking

Method
1. Marinate the beef with the herbs, freshly ground black pepper and soya sauce. Coat with corn flour if you are using thawed beef to soak up the extra water. Leave to marinate at least 1/2 hr.
2. Slice up the pepper, mushrooms, garlic and onions.
3. In a very hot pan, pour in some cooking oil and brown the beef cubes. Remember to turn them over so all sides are nicely browned, and the sides can even be a bit charred. Do a few pieces at a time, you don't want the thing to turn soggy when the juices come out. This makes the beef tough. The pan should be hot all the time rather than simmering. Remove from pan.
4. Camerialise the onions with butter. After this is done, throw in the garlic, peppers and mushrooms. Toss around.
5. Transfer the vegetables to a pot, together with the beef cubes. Pour in the rice. Stir until incorporated. Once you start seeing and hearing the rice start to sizzle, pour in 2 ladles of beef stock. Step back and you should see a sudden puff of steam and hear something which sounds like a huge 'sigh'. According to an Italian chef, the Italians call this the "sospiro" or 'the sigh'. This is the mark of a good risotto. (Or is it sospirare? Pls forgive my Italian if the form of the word is wrong, haha!) Kinda reminds me of how chicken rice is cooked too! So we Chinese don't just have a monopoly on cooking techniques.
6. Pour in another few ladles of stock. Stir! One thing about a risotto, the creamy texture only comes out if the risotto is 'loved', ie stirred constantly. This is why all those 'quick bake' recipes just don't taste the same. Slowly stirring for 20 minutes over the stove is nothing compared to tossing it in an oven and baking. The starch of the rice is released when liquid is introduced slowly and stirred, allowing the grain to absorb the rice and release its starch. This gives the risotto its trademark creamy texture. Adding cream or butter is just a cop out!
7. Keep adding stock every time when it looks like the liquid has been absorbed, and stirring. This goes on for about 20 minutes until the rice has softened. But don't over do it, you still want it al dente.
8. About halfway thru the cooking process, pour in the red wine, and add more of the herb mexture to the risotto to give the rice some flavour.
9. Once the rice is cooked, throw in the grated parmesan, turn off the heat and stir it in. How do you tell if the rice is done? Different parts of Italy have different ways of eating risotto, some like it soupy like Teochew muay, others like it stody like Hong Kong congee. It's all personal preference. You don't have to use up all the stock. Leftover stock can be used to loosen the leftover risotto when warming up the leftover risotto, as leftover risotto tends to get stody in the fridge.
10. Serve with more grated parmesan, freshly milled pepper and a glass of red wine.

Verdict: I've tried a variation using pork but still prefer my original chicken and mushroom combination. Somehow that's just the creamiest.