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So I'm going to talk about one of my favourite meals
that I can cook in the Thermomix,
and this is a risotto.
And it might look quite complicated,
but this is really, really simple.
And this is something that I've cooked on the road
many many many times, it's something
that I've cooked at home for my family any times.
And you can have a lot of different varieties with it.
But what we're going to work on today is
a chicken-based risotto,
and I've hand cut the vegetables to give a different look,
and the grains that I'm using,
I'm using three different grains,
where I've got some pearl barley,
I've got some quinoa,
and I've got some normal risotto rice.
And I'm doing that for a few reasons,
I'm doing it one, it adds different flavours and textures,
more variety of different foods give more nutrients in there.
Things such as the quinoa,
again one of these new superfoods,
that's got protein, it's got great fats in it,
it's an absolutely fantastic grain.
So we bring it all together,
we get great textures, cooking it all together
as well great textures, flavours,
and the nutrients are great as well.
Parmesan cheese,
Parmesan cheese is such a great flavour,
for in food such as risotto.
I'm going to grate this first of all in the Thermomix.
Parmesan cheese you know what it's like
you can be grating it for hours, it's hard work,
but the Thermomix
will make short work of it.
So I've got 100 grams of Parmesan cheese.
Just going to put that in bowl.
Put my lid on, and I'm going to put it
on speed ten, for ten seconds.
And this will give us a really nice,
fine Parmesan cheese.
And I love smelling things,
I love the smell of fresh Parmesan.
So I'll be using some of the Parmesan in the cooking,
and I'll also be using some of the Parmesan
to finish the risotto off with as well.
I'm also going to be using some cream cheese
within the risotto, so this adds protein,
and it adds a very, very nice creamy texture.
The next thing I'm going to do
is put all of my vegetables into the bowl,
with the chicken, and I'm going to start cooking
that to get everything softened
and start cooking the chicken through.
The garlic that I'm using
I happen to have in this large bulbed garlic,
one of them is equivalent to about four cloves,
so one of them chopped down
to the garlic we've got there.
I love garlic, great flavours with it.
So, I'm going to use some coconut oil with it,
but you can use olive oil.
I'm using coconut oil
because I love the flavours with it.
I love the types of fats that are in it,
again we're getting variety,
and I've been using coconut oil now
since the late eighties.
So, I put my coconut oil in first,
then all of these vegetables go in,
and with the beetroot
there that was whole beetroot with the stalks as well.
I put my chicken in.
I'm going to set this for ten minutes.
100 degrees
And just put it onto speed two.
And just while that's cooking I can go away,
and have a cup of tea, and come back.
Oh, and I forgot the garlic.
So I've got the Thermomix jingle again,
that tells me that it's been cooking for ten minutes
so that should have softened everything.
And that's absolutely beautiful.
So the colours are starting to come through there now.
It's just partially cooked so now I've softened
the vegetables and the chicken,
I'm going to add the rice,
quinoa and pearl barley mix.
I've got some beautiful homemade vegetable stock here
so I'm going to put a good teaspoon full in.
A teaspoon is equivalent
to a normal stock cube.
There's quite a bit of salt in this so
I'm not adding any extra seasoning,
any extra salt to the risotto.
I'm now going to put water
that I've just boiled in,
because that helps with the cooking
and I'm going to cover the whole risotto
by about three centimetres.
I am going to need to add more water to it
but this is to get things cooking.
This will make a really nice creamy sauce with this,
so I'm just covering it by about three centimetres.
And that's just freshly boiled water.
Put my lid back on,
I've set it for 20 minutes,
which should be long enough for it to cook
but we can always check.
I'm going to set it again at 100 degrees.
Put it at speed two.
And on reverse blade.
And what I'll do as well,
to help with the stirring,
I'm going to use our spatula.
Just give it another mix, it's going well.
I'll slow this down,
because that's mixing nicely,
just down to speed 1.
And I'll let that cook.
So it's been cooking for about five minutes,
I'm just going to check to see if it needs any more fluid.
So I'll have a look.
That's all cooking great.
Let's have a look.
That is coming really, really nice,
it's got a nice sauce with it.
Just see if the...
We're going to get the timing spot on.
So I've just tasted it,
it's coming on fantastically.
It just needs a little bit more salt,
so I'm going to put just half a teaspoon in.
I'm also going to add the cream cheese,
so this just brings a really nice texture
and as well great protein again with it.
So I've got 180 grams of cheese.
And I'm going to add about half the Parmesan cheese.
So this again helps to make
that really creamy sauce with it, great flavours.
Just put about half in.
I'll give it a little stir with my spatula
then I'll switch it on just to finish it off
there for the next five minutes.
So I'll just give that a little mix in.
Put my lid back on.
Speed one.
And off we go.
So now that's cooked for 20 minutes, it's finished.
So all I'm going to do now
is put it in a nice serving dish and we'll eat it.
So we can see we've got
a lovely creamy sauce there.
Everything's cooked really nice.
To perfection.
Just get all the...
all the pearl barley and quinoa and rice.
And because I used the reverse blade,
it hasn't turned it all into mush,
it's stirred it all nice,
so everything is really nicely mixed in and cooked.
And I'm just going to dress it
with a little bit of wild rocket
And then we've got the Parmesan
for people who want a little bit more Parmesan.
And then we're good to go.
Am I allowed to speak with my mouth full?
No it's really, it is really nice.
I mean, I haven't done that exact recipe,
but it's that concept.
You know, that I've made countless times
when I've been away, working with bike riders,
working with athletes.
It's just a simple dish and it just tastes
so, so, so, so good.
But again the really important thing
is using the reverse blade otherwise it all just turns into,
into almost like a stew.
But this is, we can see we've got
a beautiful creamy sauce with that.
The Philadelphia cheese is great for the protein
and the Parmesan just gives it such a good kick.
And I bet the guys really love it
that you actually change the flavours by inventing
a slight variation every time.
Yeah, well that's the nice thing with cooking,
is that you can do it slightly different every time,
it doesn't have to be perfect.
And as you can see,
I'm not a chef.
But it's nice to do things that work well.
Normally when you're cooking a risotto
you've got to stand over it, stirring it,
watching it all the time,
whereas with the Thermomix I can just let
it do everything.
So I can put everything in
and it's just cooking away.
The other thing is about the temperature control.
I can set the temperature to within a degree
of what I want it to be, so that helps
with a few things.
One, about the cooking time,
but also it helps to protect the nutrients within the food as well.
Nutritionally the Thermomix makes a lot of sense,
because we're not going to be overcooking foods,
we're not going to be denaturing some of the proteins
and some of the vitamins,
which you can easily do
by just putting too much heat into the pan.
The Thermomix gives me pretty much control
over everything, because I can weigh
the ingredients
so I know exactly how much is going in there.
I can chop it to exactly the cut that I want,
so if I want a rough cut then it can be rough
or if I want it super fine,
then it can be really fine.
So it gives me all that degree of control
so it can be exactly as I want it.