Risotto is a popular dish with both vegetable, meat, and rice (carbs). There are plenty of recipes online, but I found this one Gordon’s Quick & Simple Dinner Recipes is particularly easy to follow. After two attempts, I managed to find the practical way to do the job, where the key is the spices. If you do not have enough spices, the dish could be tasteless.

Ingredients:

  • one (1) onion
  • one (1) pound hot italian style sausage, which could be a chicken or pork sausage, just don’t use turkey sausage, unless you are really into that flavor. Also, I found the grounded sausage can do its job better.
  • one (1) bell pepper. The color doesn’t matter, but I suggest to use red/yellow bell pepper.
  • one (1) tomato
  • not too much green onion. Green onion is not quite for the blended flavor. It is more like a dressing. So you can use leek as well.
  • two (2) cups of brown rice. Regular white rice would do the same, or even better. I used brown rice simply because that was what I have by the time.
  • several clovers of garlic
  • one (1) tablespoon paprika
  • one (1) tablespoon cajun powder
  • one (1) tablespoon Indian curry powder. I bought the pre-mixed curry, although traditionally every family has their own ways to combine spices to produce curry flavor.
  • one (1) tablespoon tomato paste. This is to add some sweetness into the flavor.
  • several cups of chicken stock/broth
  • white wine, which I didn’t prepare for my practices, but you can add it in if you like.

Cooking steps:

  1. Chop the onion into not too large pieces, and throw them into a soup pot.
  2. Chop the bell pepper into short strips, so that they can be tasted after cooking. If you have too small cubes, the texture of the bell pepper would not be good enough. You can put it aside in a plate after chopping.
  3. Dice garlic cloves, and place it with the bell pepper.
  4. Place your grounded sausage into a container. If you have regular sausage, you can chop it roughly into cubes.
  5. Start fry the onion with some oil. The goal is to caramelize the onion, and let it change the color to a slightly deep color.
  6. Once the onion is changing color, pour the bell pepper and garlic in. Use high heat to fry it. If the fire is not strong enough, all the water would be escaping out of the pepper.
  7. After several minutes, place the sausage and all dry spices into the pot.
  8. Fry the sausage with all spices for one or two minutes.
  9. Pour in the rice, and blend it with others well for 30 seconds.
  10. Add the the stock/broth in until the stock/broth can submerge everything nicely.
  11. Put the lid on, and turn down the fire to simmer it for 30 minutes. Remember to stir it every few minutes.
  12. During the waiting time, you can chop the tomato into cubes, and dice the green onion finely. You can place them all together.
  13. After 30 minutes of cooking, you can remove the lid to evaporate all the water. The goal is to get as less water as possible, since we are making a risotto, not a soup. When you can feel the mixture becomes slimy, and you can barely see any running water on the surface of the dish, it is good to turn off the heat.
  14. After turning off the heat, place chopped tomato and green onion in the pot. Blend them with others until fully mixed.
  15. Now you can scop the risotto out, and have a nice meal.