My sister Céline is currently living in Frankfurt, Germany. She is to come back to work in France at the beginning of next year, which makes me deliriously happy, but until then we have to make do with the weekends she comes to spend with us. This Saturday, after the traditional afternoon of shopping together, Céline came over for dinner. She is very appreciative of my cooking, so it’s always a pleasure feeding her.
As a main dish, I prepared a porcini walnut risotto in the pressure cooker. I always start from a recipe I picked up on the Cooking Light Forums some years ago, and tweak it to include whatever ingredients my risotto happens to star.
Each of us was served a little mound of risotto, on which I ground black pepper and sprinkled parmesan, with a green salad on the side. Alternatively the risotto could be deposited on a bed of salad in a shallow bowl, or circles could be used to shape the rice neatly, but this was just us, so I forwent the fuss.
Risotto is always a very satisfying dish, and here the creamy rice was particularly well complemented by the soft porcini and the crunchy walnuts. The three of us polished this off nicely but, had we had any leftovers, I would have made risotto cakes the next day, sautéed in a little olive oil in a skillet, in the manner of Italian arancini.
