Purple is my favourite colour. Last winter I had a purple coat (I got some pretty amazing compliments about it in Seattle – do Americans not have purple jackets?) I also had about 5 purple tops, a couple of purple dresses and the most amazing purple shoes. (I even had a pair of purple tights… but we won’t go into that.)
Even though going through an extreme purple phase I never ate anything purple. It’s not a colour I associate with food, especially not savoury meals. So when I got beetroot in my organic box this week and started looking into what new things I could do with it. Browsing online this purple risotto jumped out at me!
Strikingly purple beetroot risotto
I only started making risottos a couple of years ago, and they are so versatile, once you’ve made your first there is no going back. By having risotto rice (I use Arborio), an onion, some garlic and a few stock cubes in the cupboard you can pretty much always whip up a risotto with whatever else is lying around. Bacon, Chicken, sweetcorn, mushrooms, peas, seafood, white wine, runner beans, tomatoes the list goes on.
Normally when creating a risotto measurements go out the window, I decide how much liquid to put in based how dry it is, this helps if you are using different ingredients with different water contents. So follow the ingredient list loosely and had as much or as little liquid as you need.
Beetroot Risotto
Serves 2 -3 people
- 3 large beetroot, peeled and chopped into cubes (you may want to wear rubber gloves and an apron so the beetroots don’t stain).
- 1 onion, thinly diced
- 2 cloves of garlic
- 1 glass of red wine
- 250 grams of risotto rice
- Olive oil, mine was chilli infused
- 1 vegetable stock cube dissolved in around 300ml of hot water
- Grated parmesan, opitional
- Toss the beetroot and the olive oil into a roasting tin, and place in a preheated 180oC oven.
- After twenty minutes add the garlic cloves
- Leave for around another 15 – 20 minutes, watch the beetroot doesn’t burn.
- While the beetroot is cooking add a little olive oil to a frying pan, when hot add the onions, cooking till they go translucent.
- Add the rice to the pan and stir for around two minutes, then add your red wine. Stir so all the rice is coated, it is the red wine that gives the rice most of it’s purple appearance.
- Add the vegetable stock and leave to simmer, it should take around 20 minutes. Stir occasionally. After around 10 minutes the rice should start to plump up, at this point it becomes more crucial to make sure the rice doesn’t stick to the bottom of the pan or become too dry. Add more hot water as necessary.
- Once the roast beetroot is done, add to the risotto, stirring through the rice (you should notice the rice becoming a darker shade of purple). Once the rice has cooked through serve! Grate a little parmesan on top.
This was a simple risotto to make and tasted pretty good, and although it has beetroot in it I wouldn’t hesitate to give this dish to a group of people, as the flavours weren’t too strong. Lovely.
Couldn’t resist posting this…
They're very purple shoes!
