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Recipes from my Lincolnshire kitchen

sous vide fennel risotto – and a giveaway!

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… having been secretly impressed cooking chicken and fish in my sous vide over the christmas period i’ve since been trying to think of something clever to create in it which is vegetarian and I simply couldn’t think of anything until I noticed a recipe for risotto on the sous vide supreme website… it’s funny because I keep looking at the machine and thinking to myself that I must use it more but not really knowing what to cook in it when in fact I can cook almost anything in it, I simply have to learn the technique and how to fit it into my lifestyle… I guess what I really need to do is plan a big dinner party and purchase some wonderful steak or venison and really show the machine off to its best.  I am still impressed with the results, it’s just bothering to get the machine out and use it that I struggle with.

sous vide fennel risotto
I think the rice was trickier than I initially thought… where usually you can be quite liberal with timings for meat, with the rice I must have left it in for too long or used too much stock as it seemed to have turned to mush… very tasty mush but mush nonetheless.  The fennel on the other hand was superb, so perfectly tender with a slight bite and packed with a deeply aniseed flavour, it then only needed mere seconds in my gorgeous new baby blue ProCook griddle pan to give it a little colour and caramelisation and we were good to go.  Using a griddle pan is a great and healthy way to add flavour to food without having to use bucket loads of oil or butter, in fact if you use your griddle pan correctly you can get away with a very very light spritz of oil…

90g arborio risotto rice
400ml good quality vegetable stock (i’ve reduced this from the 700ml given in the original recipe
1 glass white wine
1 tablespoon olive oil
salt and pepper
2 fennel bulbs – trimmed cut in half
a little butter
some grated parmesan to taste

fill your sous vide with water and set the temperature to 83C

place the rice, oil, wine and stock into a large sous vide bag and carefully squeeze out as much air as you can, then seal the end. (Don’t use the vacuum when using bags filled with liquid)

place the fennel bulbs into another bag, add the butter, seasoning and fresh herbs and seal using the vacuum sealer

place both the rice and fennel into the sous vide and set the timer for 40 mins – both the rice and the bulbs should be ready at the same time but check on the rice after 30 mins as you want to have a little bite

preheat the griddle pan on a high temp, then remove the fennel bag from the sous vide and empty the entire contents into the pan and saute on both sides for roughly 3 minutes per side

empty the risotto bag into a bowl and add the cheese and stir, then place the fennel on top before serving.

…i’m so in love with my griddle pan that I’ve persuaded the nice chap at ProCook to give me one to give away to one of you lucky people… all you have to do to be in with a chance of wining one is fill in the clever rafflecopter widget below… the competition is open to UK residents only but if you’re outside the UK and have friends or relatives i the UK then you can enter on their behalf… good luck!
a Rafflecopter giveaway//d12vno17mo87cx.cloudfront.net/embed/rafl/cptr.js
eat and of course, enjoy!

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Comments

  11. Edward Guerreiro says

    Wow, this is actually a very difficult choice, but I guess I would go with rice. I can't get enough of egg fried rice.

  17. Anonymous says

    none,my stomach doesnt like these for some reason ,i have a problem but dont know yet what it is

    @avelte2000

  21. Romana Richards says

    I tend to use rice much more often then pasta. I think it has a lower GI (if you do not overcook it). However, sometimes an Italian Style meal calls only for pasta and then I tend to use tri colore wholemeal or homemade egg pasta.

  26. Emma Jones says

    Rice, I make so many different dishes using rice but with pasta I always have the same old pasta bakes. I probably need to be a little more adventurous!

  40. Anonymous says

    I'd have to say PASTA – I love Italian food. Plus, coming from a Caribbean family, I grew up eating so much rice & peas that I'm not as keen on rice as I used to be (too much of a good thing, perhaps?!)

    Ant 🙂

  53. Choclette says

    Oh, oh, oh, that is such a touch question? Love pasta, love rice. If push came to shove it might just have to be pasta. Would love to have a griddle pan.

  122. Karen S Booth says

    A FABULOUS way to cook fennel and a lovely sous vide recipe too Dom! I love my machine and although it is rather large, it is great for pre-cooking stuff for the BBQ and so I tolerate it taking up space! I am JUST gettign over my tequila and sambuca induced evening with you and The Viking, it was JUST the BEST time ever! K xxxx

  167. Sarah Davies says

    Probably a different choice every day and dependent on what goes with it, but today I would say rice. (Influenced no doubt by just having read your wonderful recipe!)

  183. Magnolia Verandah says

    Don't know how I missed this fennel recipe since my growing acceptance for the bulb. And this sounds a really lovely risotto. As I am not in the UK I would love to nominate my sister who has been having difficult times this last year or so and has not been able to blog as much as she would like I am sure she would dearly love this baby blue griddle pan, it would sit perfectly in her kitchen. Please helicopter goddess be kind! I must admit I had to look up Sous vide. Is this a slow cooker or what we call a ThermoMix?

  203. Margie says

    I Love Rice Dishes, just ate a fried rice with steak, mushroom and peas hmmm it was gorgeous.
    I like pasta too but definitely prefer rice.
    Thanks for hosting x

  283. Anonymous says

    Love pasta but I've been on a no carb diet so haven't had any in ages! Still lost over a stone and a half so ….