Ingredients
- 1 1/2 onions, finely chopped
- 1 garlic clove, crushed
- 200gm ham off the bone, finely chopped
- 2 tbsp finely chopped rosemary
- 500gm arborio rice
- 1.5l hot chicken stock
- 100gm Fontina, diced (Can be replaced with Gruyère, Emmental, Beaufort, Taleggio, Edam, or Gouda)
- 50gm parmesan, finely grated
- 1 cup (loosely packed) flat-leaf parsley, coarsely chopped
Instructions
- Heat half the oil in a frying pan over medium heat, add onion and garlic, stir occasionally until translucent (5-7 minutes), add ham and rosemary, cook until tender (3-5 minutes), then set aside.
- Heat remaining oil in saucepan over medium heat, add rice and stir until rice is too hot to touch, but not coloured (2-4 minutes). Bring stock to the boil, pour over rice, season to taste, stir to combine, cover, reduce heat to low and cook, without stirring (adding a little extra stock if necessary), until rice is al dente (15-20 minutes).
- Add Fontina, parmesan and ham mixture, stir well until cheese melts and mixture is creamy (1-2 minutes). Season to taste, stir through parsley and serve hot, drizzled with olive oil.
I’m only a fairly recent convert to risotto, only within the past 5 years really. I’ve never been a big fan of rice and risotto always looked gluggy and icky. Now? Definitely one of my favourite meals. Lily loves it too and will easily eat a full bowl of it.
Mr Monkey brought home a copy of the 2012 Annual Gourmet Traveller Cookbook, which includes the best recipes from the magazines during the year. I grabbed it from him and started marking recipes that I wanted to try. This recipe was in there, from the May 2011 edition.
I went to the Farmers Market and was able to get some Fontina cheese. I hadn’t actually heard of this cheese before but it was yummy!
The whole recipe was fairly easy, perhaps just a little more preparation than most of my normal meals. I should’ve cut the ham and rosemary up smaller, but I was a little lazy.
It tasted delicious! I don’t mean to brag but it was definitely one of the best risottos I’ve had (don’t tell Mr Monkey!).
I *very* highly recommend this recipe.
[...] ♥ Monday – Fish and Vegetable Parcels ♥ Tuesday – Ham, Fontina & Rosemary Risotto ♥ Wednesday – Avocado chicken parmigiana & mash ♥ Thursday – Giovanni’s [...]