This is just a very quick post about 'Speltotto' - a word that I believe was invented by Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstal (HFW as he's called in our house). It is a 'risotto' made by using pearled spelt. I have been wanting this make this for A-GES.... And now I have! Last night. And it was absolutely delicious! The kids loved it too - not unimportant. Think we have been converted...
I personally stopped making (white) rice risotto a while ago because I started to feel completely 'blocked' inside afterwards. Sometimes for days. In other words, my insides/digestive system no longer agreed with this white business. I always cook brown (basmati) rice for any other rice dishes and we eat rye, wholemeal or spelt bread - sourdough too. Question is of course, have I unlearned my body to eat 'the white stuff'.......? I don't know. But what I do know is that I prefer to listen to what my body tells me - which is to not block the system please ;). And since spelt is much easier to digest for us human beings, I really wanted to give that a try.
Here's a bit more from WIKI on spelt: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spelt
So. Pearled spelt. Asked my husband to bring some Sharpham Park spelt from the UK a while ago (you can read about them here: www.sharphampark.com). And last night I finally decided to be brave enough to open the pack and try it out...
I read the recipe on the pack and I also read the HFW recipe. Because they were actually quite similar to how I used to make my rice risotto, I decided to mix it all up and come up with the following (a success):
This served the kids & moi and we had enough left over for the kids' lunch boxes today. I'd say this makes 4 portions for normal eaters - with a salad on the side it would be enough. If in doubt because you've got big eaters in the house, use 400g spelt and a little more stock for 4.
Ingredients
a slug of olive oil
a knob of butter
300g pearled spelt
a slug of white wine or dry vermouth
1 liter chicken (or veg) stock
1 large onion, finely chopped
1 clove garlic, crushed
1 small leek, finely sliced
few hands full of fresh spinach, washed and cut if large leaves
1 cup frozen peas
-----basically add any green veg you like -----------
a handful of freshly grated parmesan, plus extra for on top
2 tbsp mascarpone or cream cheese
flatleaf parsley, chopped
salt & freshly ground black pepper
Cooking method
Heat olive oil & butter in a large saucepan on medium heat. Add diced onion and garlic and sweat until translucent. Add the spelt, stir well and make sure you coat all the kernels - like you would with risotto rice. Add the white wine or dry vermouth and reduce.
Now start adding the stock, ladle by ladle. Let it reduce before adding the next one, and the next one, etc. etc. Make sure you keep the heat to medium. The spelt should start to soak up all the liquid and soften/cook. Mine took about 25-30 mins. Add salt & freshly ground pepper and taste.
Then add the veggies. I added the peas first (in their frozen state), then the spinach, then the leek (both uncooked). Keep stirring well and continuously throughout the entire process. It might get a bit wetter again from the veggies so again let it reduce. At the end I added a good handful grated parmesan (as I always did with my rice risottos), the mascarpone (for a more calorific version - it brings out a lot of the flavours is my excuse!) and the chopped parsley. Taste again and if happy: serve on hot plates (nothing worse than a dish like this arriving on a cold plate (in fact it would be a CRIME ;)!) and sprinkle over some extra parmesan and black pepper.
ENJOY!! We did.
Would love to hear how you get on and what other varieties you have come up with!
Bon appétit!!
Love,
Bee X
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