Artichoke-and-potato risotto

Artichoke-and-potato risotto recipe

Preparation and cooking

• - Prepare 1.0 liter (2.1 pints - 4 1/4 cups) vegetable stock.
• - Meanwhile peel off the outer leaves of the artichokes and trim round the base with a knife.
• - Remove all spines that cover the base beneath the soft inner leaves and cut them into 4.
• - Drop your artichokes into a basin of cold water mixed with the lemon juice.
• - Peel and cube the potato.
• - Slice diagonally the leek, after washing it.
• - In a saucepan place olive oil, leek, artichokes (cut into thin slices), potatoes, fat slices and cook gently until the leek is a transparent blond colour and soft.
• - Add rice and cook until it looks milky, 3 to 4 minutes.
• - At this point add 2 - 3 ladlefuls of stock and simmer until absorbed, stirring.
• - Continue adding stock, ladle by ladle, until rice is tender.
• - Your risotto is ready!

Just before serving

• - Serve artichoke-and-potato risotto after some minutes.
• - Accompany artichoke-and-potato risotto with a little bowl full of Parmesan.
  Everyone will be able to serve himself according to his own taste.

Note

Tips

• - If you want a recipe low in fat, don't use lard. I generally do it so for our daily menu and I have a tasty risotto. Lard is reserved for special occasions :))
• - I generally don't use wine cooking artichoke-and-potato risotto. The presence of artichokes suggests not to use wine because it's difficult to pair any wine with artichokes.
• - A variant to this artichoke-and-potato risotto recipe I usually make is to cook risotto with only artichokes using 1 1/2 tablespoon olive oil and cook potatoes separately in a non-stick frying pan with the remaining olive oil and rosemary.
  At the end I combine all together as you can see on the photo.
• - I generally use a mixture or rice, emmer and barley instead of only rice to make my risotto recipes.

Menu planning

• - Choose artichoke-and-potato risotto as main dish in your family menu but not frequently.
• - Artichoke-and-potato risotto can be a first course in a typical Italian menu especially in spring when artichokes are in season. Read more on my Easter menu. Yoou can find the link to this menu in the next paragraph.

Useful links for this recipe

• - You could be interested in artichoke page too, where you can find a lot of details about cleaning, preserving and cooking in Italy.
• - Here's the Easter menu with artichoke risotto. It's ideal for spring too.

Healthy eating

• - The presence of lard makes artichoke-and-potato risotto rich in fat. For your daily menu I suggest you don't use it.
  In this case calories, fat and sugar are transformed in the following way.
  Calories: 403 kcal (1685 kJ), so you save about 90 calories
  Protein: 9.3g (no change)
  Fat: 11g (almost halved)
  Total carbohydrate: 71.2g (no change)
  Sugars: 4.4g (no change)
  If you like the composition of artichoke-and-potato risotto and want the doses for a single serving, here they are: 70g (2 1/2 ounces) rice, 1 small artichoke, a small onion instead of leeks, which usually are always too big, one small potato (about 70g) and herbs according to your own taste, 2 teaspoons olive oil. Eventually a single slice of lard.
• - I remember you my original home recipes can be made without salt. There is always a combination of flavors that substitutes salt. To browse our website easily and to look for other Italian recipes look at navigation bar and click on green button. That's the way to home page for Italian cooking.

Loretta

What's the right wine ?

For the artichoke presence it would be better not to match wine but beer with this risotto.