There are those that would try to pass this off as a risotto. Actually it is closer to the sort of slop that inspired the attempt to improve my diet, or is it?
It can't be called a risotto for various very good reasons, primarily the rice is long grain and not the starchy short grained that gives such a creamy finish and gentle pudding-y look to the accepted dish. Secondly, good risotto relies on its rice and excellent stock with just a very few other ingredients, a few mushrooms perhaps or some fennel, to give it a sophisticated simplicity. This rice dish is loaded down with extra veg. and I've used a commercial stock cube. Finally, and this is probably the killer, I allowed the finely chopped onion to brown, even burn, during the initial stages. In any good Italian kitchen this would have been discarded (along with the sous chef) as an unforgivable misdemeanour. I just carried on regardless.
On the plus side, I used an excellent white wine, a Muscadet Sevre et Main sur lie which tastes a good deal better than you might expect and as this is a vegan repast a dash of Marmite and nutritional yeast to substitute for the parmesan cheese.
It's o.k. but actually tonight I'm just going to finish the bottle of wine and never mind the comfort food.
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