Black Truffle and Porcini Risotto

From Spice by Christine Manfield page 224

Slight correction to the recipe name. It was more of a 'Black Truffle and Swiss Brown Mushroom Risotto'. I didn't have a lot of luck finding the dried porcini - and my desire to cook and eat outweighed my desire to continue on my ingredient hunt - thus the substitution.

Mind you - compared to dried porcini - black truffles are much harder to find. Funny what you can get at Aldi from time to time though!

I also managed to get some truffle oil there as well. It looks pretty genuine with truffle slices in the bottom of the bottle.

Introducing my general list of ingredients...

This time the glass of wine went in the dish!

I couldn't find fresh tarragon at the time, so I substituted some of the dried herb. The flavour of the tarragon seemed to complement the flavour of the truffles. Yum!

Happy cooking!

Salsa!

Salsa - Spanish for 'sauce', seems to have become a favourite dip for corn chips across the western world. A colleague dropped a collection of chillies at our desk, so after halving the bounty with a fellow chilli lover, I came out of the deal with a number of yellow birds-eye style chillies (not exactly sure of the type) - oh an a couple of Carolina Reapers.

Initially intending to make a south east Asian style sauce, I decided I was in more of a Mexican mood. So my ingredients were: a green capsicum, one red onion, garlic (5 cloves), two limes, two tins of whole tomatoes, one bunch of coriander, Mexican seasoning, salt and sugar to taste, and the chillies.

First, dice up the capsicum then red onion...

Then garlic and then yellow chillies...

Then (very carefully) finely dice and add the Carolina Reapers.

Then with the coriander I separated the stalks from the leaves, and diced up the stalks (I add these to the cooking a little later).

Heat some oil in a pot / pan / whatever you have on hand - and add the diced ingredients except for the coriander at this stage.

Now that the chilli is cooking - set the rangehood to its highest setting (last time I cooked chilli like this I had family members in separate parts of the house coughing within about 2 minutes).

Stir... keeping your face a safe distance from the fumes.

Once things have started to soften I added in the coriander stalks and cook through.

(feel free to omit the coriander if you're one of those people who doesn't like it, and also click here, but don't feel bad - apparently about 10% of people can't stand the stuff and it's wired to our genes)

Then add the Mexican seasoning.

Stir through briefly to activate the flavours in the spices. Be careful not to burn and then add in the tinned tomatoes.

I cooked through for about another 10 minutes before adding the coriander leaves, lime, and seasoning for flavour.

Even though it was way too hot for the smaller members of the household, it came with the thumbs up.

It made about a litre. I brought it to work to share with my chilli grower a few fellow chilli lovers, and though it was really hot some of them came back for seconds. I made it part of my lunch and after a few minutes experienced a little 'chilli high'. Nice.