Today’s recipe is for a colorful first course: purple risotto with red cabbage.
For a few days now, the little one in the house has been asking for colorful dishes at lunch: blue pasta, red meat, yellow fruit, so to please her, today I prepared a beautiful purple risotto. Needless to say, she was super excited and devoured it. Sometimes it takes very little to make everyone in the house happy!
A simple risotto toasted with a sauté of onions and deglazed with a bit of white wine, slowly cooked by adding some broth to which I added red cabbage, and finally a pecorino cream to give it a touch of flavor. I confess that I also added some chopped toasted hazelnuts to my plate, super delicious. The creaminess of the rice contrasted with the crunchiness of the hazelnuts was truly poetic.
Now let’s see together, step by step, how to make this recipe.
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- Difficulty: Very Easy
- Cost: Very Cheap
- Preparation time: 5 Minutes
- Portions: 4 people
- Cooking methods: Stovetop
- Cuisine: Italian
- Seasonality: Fall, Winter, and Spring
Ingredients for 4 people
- 14 oz parboiled rice
- 12 oz red cabbage
- 1 clove garlic
- 2 slices onion
- 1/3 cup white wine
- 8 1/2 cups vegetable broth
- 3 1/2 oz Pecorino Romano (grated)
- to taste fine salt
- 1 grind pepper
- to taste olive oil
Tools
- 1 Scale
- 1 Pan
- 1 Cutting Board
- 1 Knife
- 1 Saucepan
- 1 Immersion Blender
- 1 Bowl
Let’s Prepare the Purple Risotto Together
Take the red cabbage, cut it in half, and then into thin slices. Cut the slices into smaller parts, then wash it in water and drain. Take a pan and pour in two or three tablespoons of olive oil and a peeled garlic clove, let it heat slightly, and add the drained cabbage. In a saucepan, heat the broth; you can also do this by boiling water with a carrot and a couple of cabbage leaves, perhaps the hard or damaged outer ones.
Add a pinch of salt and a grind of pepper, cover the cabbage with a lid, and let it cook, adding a ladle of broth if it dries out too much. It will take about 7 or 8 minutes.
Remove the garlic and put 2/3 of the cooked cabbage in the immersion blender cup and blend it into a puree. If it is too thick, add a little broth. Leave the remaining cabbage in pieces but remove it from the pan and transfer it to a plate since you will add it halfway through the rice cooking.
In the same pan, add the finely chopped onion with a good swirl of olive oil and let it sauté. Then add the rice and toast it for a minute; you will see the rice become a little translucent. At this point, deglaze with the white wine, stir, and let the alcohol evaporate. Then continue cooking the rice by adding a ladle of hot broth when the rice dries out and stirring so that the starch is released and creates a nice cream. Also, add a pinch of salt, but don’t overdo it.
Halfway through the rice cooking, add the red cabbage, both the pieces and the pureed one, and continue cooking with the hot broth. When the rice is cooked, turn off the heat and wait a minute for it to settle.
In the meantime, put the grated Pecorino in a bowl and gradually add 90 – 100 ml of hot broth until you get a smooth cream.
Now you can add the Pecorino cream directly to the pan and mix everything together, or you can put a spoonful on each plate and let the diner mix it. In any case, take a photo of your purple risotto with red cabbage and post it on social media tagging me (a curly-haired cook instagram and facebook) and show me how you did it.
A Curly-Haired Cook’s Advice
If you have little time to prepare the purple risotto with red cabbage, you can shorten the preparation a bit by cooking the rice with the cabbage; so the steps will be: Pan with oil and garlic, cabbage slices in the pan, let them wilt, and then add the rice so they cook together, always adding some broth. It will be just as delicious.
FAQ (Questions and Answers)
What is the best pan for cooking rice?
The best pan for cooking rice is made of copper or cast iron and is 2.5 to 3 inches high. The width is also important for optimal cooking; for 4 people you need a pan of 9 to 11 inches.
