Lucky dip - Greg Malouf on risotto
"This book is intended for anyone who is interested in discovering more about the culinary influence of the Middle East and how to use these foods and flavours in their own kitchens at home." Greg Malouf
And I use that quote from Greg and Lucy Malouf's wonderful book Arabesque, my lucky dip book for today, to illustrate the fusion nature of his food. For the page I turned to is all about risotto - which is not Middle Eastern at all.
Or is it? This book is one of those that is arranged alphabetically by ingredients, and this is the section on rice. In his introduction to this section he describes how rice was introduced to Europe - basically via the Arabs, and their conquest of parts of southern Europe in the late middle ages. The Arabs or perhaps I should say the Moors, in turn had learnt about rice from the Persians who applied their sophisticated irrigation techniques to the growing of rice which they think originated in the mountainous region on the border of India and China. Unlike wheat, it's not obvious how you grow rice. You don't just throw seeds on the ground. So it took the Persians to work out how to grow it on a biggish scale. We all know that rice features hugely in Middle Eastern food - rice and bread are the main carbohydrates consumed in these countries, but risotto? Risotto is Italian and is made from different rice to that used in the Middle East.
But here is where Greg Malouf excels. He takes an Italian dish and transforms it with slight Middle Eastern touches.
The page that I turned to had a step by step process for making a basic risotto - one of the best explanations I have seen I have to say, and also a recipe for Risotto with zucchini, prawn and preserved lemon. Now an Italian would never have put preserved lemon into a risotto but I'm guessing this simple addition makes this risotto tantalisingly different. Everything else in the recipe is fairly standard. And it's pretty simple to make.
Going back to his basic principles let me quote you the first words of his introduction to the recipe.
"There is nothing hard about making risotto; it simply requires supervision and constant stirring to create the proper creamy texture."
It took me years to get around to making risotto. The recipes always looked so daunting and so time consuming with lots of warnings about this and that. But when I finally tried it I realised that, as Greg Malouf says, it is not hard at all. And you don't even have to stir constantly, and indeed, in spite of his words in the above quote about 'constant stirring' in fact when it comes to the recipe he just tells you to 'stir with a wooded spoon from time to time.' Which is what I do. Delia, and probably others, even has a recipe for an oven baked risotto so no stirring required at all. Anyway if you haven't tried risotto before do try Greg Malouf's recipe and you will be converted. For me, risotto is now a regular, versatile and quick meal. You just need some arborio rice in your pantry, some onions, some wine and some parmesan and you are set to go.
This particular book has a couple of other interesting risotto recipes. The first one also uses zucchini, but this time the blossoms. You can sometimes buy these in the market, and I guess if you grow your own you will have some, but on the whole this one is a bit more difficult to reproduce. It's called Zucchini blossom and preserved lemon risotto with ricotta and parmesan - and uses the same preserved lemons to give it the Middle-eastern touch. His introduction to the recipe and discourse on zucchini flowers is rather nice.
"There’s something exquisitely ethereal about zucchini blossoms – not only is their season blink-of-an-eye short, but their fragility means they don’t take well to supermarket life. You need to hunt them down at a farmers’ market or a good greengrocer, or else grow them yourself (and zucchinis are famously easy for the home gardener). Their natural long cavity means that zucchini blossoms are frequently stuffed and then deep-fried, but the shredded blossoms also add a glorious colour, wonderful texture and delicate flavour to creamy risottos. Here, they combine with salty-sour preserved lemon and a creamy ricotta topping in one of our new favourite early summer risottos."
And the last one - Fried almond risotto unfortunately has no picture but sounds intriguing as it also has vermicelli in it. But that's what I like about Greg Malouf, and when I come to think about it, all my favourite cooks - simple little twists to more normal dishes.
And just a last little word about book publishing. My edition of Arabesque was published back in 1999 and had the cover shown at the top. Inside it has just a few illustrations of the dishes, but mostly it's just text with a few decorative motifs. Since then it seems to have had a series of new covers (see below} and has been published with the new title of Artichoke to za'atar. Which is sort of interesting. It is generally thought to be one of his best books I think. I use it quite a bit - sometimes for basic things like harissa, and za'atar but also for the occasional recipe. Might try one of the risottos.
