Sundried tomato and pea Risotto and Nigella’s Lamb steaks with Rosemary and port

I love risotto, in particular when either myself of D’s mum makes it. For some reason though when eating risotto out it never tastes quite as good as homemade, I think its just one of those dishes that really does benefit from all the love you stir into it (I am thinking of the mushroom and baby spinach one I had last week out whilst typing this up!) . I like to grab something food based to read (in this case it was the latest GoodFood magazine) , a nice glass perhaps of something and gently while away a good 45 minutes giving it the occasional top up of stock and a stir. Most of the risotto's I've made have come about with what needs using up, rather than a planned recipe, and this one was no exception!

To go alongside /on top of the risotto I had picked up on reduced some lamb escalope’s, having never bought them before (a habit of mine!) and in the back of my mind I had earmarked the recipe for Lamb steaks with Rosemary and port from Nigella’s Kitchen book, and after deciding the lamb steaks didn’t look hugely different (forgive me butchers, I am sure they are really different)! decided to substitute with the escalope’s instead. The recipe comes from the section of the book titled “Hurry up, I’m hungry” and its very quick, very easy, and very tasty! I am not huge on lamb, in fact was first time I’d eaten it in about six months but I really enjoyed the escalope’s, definitely a cut I will buy again. I did make some minor adjustments to the ingredients to use up what we had in fridge etc, though certainly without any loss to the specified flavours.

Basically marinade two boneless lamb steaks (or 3-4 escalopes) in Worcestershire sauce for a couple of minutes with a splash of olive oil. Fry in a pan on a medium heat, 3 or so minutes on each side (2 for the escalope’s) and transfer to foil parcels to keep warm.

Return the pan to the heat, gently melt a knob of butter, add a tsp of dried rosemary, stir in, add a squirt of garlic puree, and a couple of tablespoons of ruby port, let it reduce gently for no more than a minute or two, serve up your lamb steaks and pour the sauce over. I added a twist of black pepper to season.

Regrettably I don't have an exact recipe for the risotto as I didn’t write down any quantities etc, not realising just how delicious it would be but am sure you get the jist of it! Roughly I gently fried a finely chopped white onion in a little butter and olive oil, plus a tbsp. of the oil from sundried tomatoes, until softened but not brown coloured, added a cup of Arborio rice, a good splash or so of vermouth, swirled around, then added a cup of chicken stock, and about 5 shredded sundried tomatoes.

Then basically repeated the stock process gently for around 30 minutes, until the rice was just past al dente (I like my risotto soft!) , stirred in a handful of frozen peas, gave it a couple more minutes, removed from heat and stirred in fluffy cloud of freshly grated grana padano, seasoned with salt and pepper to taste and served with the lamb steaks on top. And a little broccoli on the side as was feeling the green love :)

As delicious as this meal was, I was even more excited though in that I could use my shiny new and fabulous DSLR camera to take a picture of it! Still on auto-focus but am practising!