Some of you may remember my ill-fated attempt to make up my own risotto recipe a few months back — and yes, unlike most cooks who probably design recipes after mastering the cooking technique, I had decided to create my own risotto recipe without ever having made risotto before. The result: a bland and overly onion-y risotto, the result of not knowing how to properly spice the dish and using water instead of a flavored broth while probably overcooking the dish.
Following that "learning" experience, I decided to step away from risotto for awhile, and instead try my luck at another rice-based dish, paella, which I thought would be far easier to master — but unfortunately despite the saffron and heavy amounts of other spices, also turned out to be fairly bland. I think the combination of these experiences finally taught me that maybe I should first actually learn how to make a specialized dish using a professional recipe, and then perhaps customize it to my tastes (an amazing revelation, I know — this reminds me of the America's Test Kitchen commercial in which Chris Kimball says something like "ever heard someone say that 'I don't need a recipe for that'" and then there are scenes of cooking gone wrong).
To that end, I recently used this Epicurious.com recipe for a butternut squash and leek risotto, and it was not only much, much better than the previous version I tried, it also ended up being the best risotto I've ever had. Even when I eat risotto at fine quality restaurants, I admit getting a bit tired of the consistency and flavors about halfway through the dish. This recipe addresses the consistency issue by mixing both intact butternut squash chunks and arborio rice, and keeps the flavors diverse with the inclusion of both fresh sage and sauteed leeks. I highly recommend this recipe, and look forward to making this dish again in a few weeks — it's simply too good to not make it into my regular cooking rotation!
I encourage everyone to try this — I think its an especially great dish to make for guests, as this recipe makes about 6 meal servings or 8 side servings, rather than the 4/6 the recipe states. And while I have gobbled up the leftovers, it does taste best right after its made, so would be great to make for a larger group. The only modifications I made to this recipe were: using a stockpot instead of a large skillet simply because this recipe required a much larger skillet than any that I have — and I didn't notice a difference at all in consistency or cooking time, using about 1.5 large leeks instead of 3 leeks because I found 1.5 leeks were enough to produce the recipe's 3 cups of finely sliced light green and white parts, substituting about 5.5 cups of vegetarian stock for the 6 cups of chicken stock, and buying what seemed to be a medium-size butternut squash instead of a large one — it may have actually been a two-pound squash but did seem like it was noticeably smaller than some of the really large sizes you see at the grocery store. And finally, the best part — while risotto can be a bit time-consuming to make, I did feel that the amount of stirring I had to do burned off the calories of what I ultimately consumed 🙂
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