Pink Risotto with Red Wine, Raisins, Walnuts and Parmesan

Pink Risotto with Wine, Cheese and Nuts

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Making pink risotto, like any other rice dish, is not difficult and, most importantly, does not take long. A simple rice porridge with raisins in the style of pink risotto, made with a little red wine and water infused with rose petals (optional), is easy to cook and very tasty.

Using different ingredients in risotto, such as mussels, seafood (as in seafood risotto), poultry, meat, wine, fruit or nuts, makes the list of risotto variations practically endless. Any risotto is essentially a high-starch rice plus a filling ingredient.

There are many cooking tricks and methods that make rice dishes unique, although they are made with quite similar techniques and recipes. Rice dishes can be completely simple or incredibly complex. Simple Chinese fried rice or chicken with rice, or complex Italian risotto.

Risotto needs special rice varieties with large grains and a high starch content. Arborio, Baldo, Roma and Carnaroli give classic risotto that creamy, refined taste that no gourmet can resist. The most popular rice for risotto is Arborio.

There are also sweet rice dishes: the porridges we know from childhood, sweet pilaf, and an almost dessert-like risotto, rice with apples. One such dish is rice porridge with raisins, cooked following the recipe for pink risotto with red wine and nuts. If you like sweet rice, try almond risotto or Venetian-style risotto with raisins. I described the basic technique in detail in the recipe for vegetable risotto.

Ingredients

2 servings

  • Arborio rice 1 cup (180 g)
  • Hot water or vegetable broth 0.8 l
  • Olive oil 3 tbsp
  • Garlic 1 clove (optional)
  • Raisins 50 g
  • Walnuts (shelled) 1-2 tbsp (8–15 g)
  • Red sweet or semi-dry wine 1-2 tbsp
  • Rose water 1 tbsp (optional)
  • Vanilla a pinch (optional)
  • Sugar to taste
  • Salt a pinch
  • Parmesan to taste (for serving)

Step-by-step recipe

Preparation

For a tasty, tender rice porridge with raisins, it is best to take a high-starch rice. This is the rice mostly used for Italian risotto: Arborio, Carnaroli, Baldo and so on. Arborio is what you will most often find in our shops. It is a white rice with a large, shiny grain.

  1. Prepare the ingredients: measure out a cup of Arborio rice (180 g), rinse the raisins and chop the walnuts. Heat the water or vegetable broth, because you need to add hot liquid to the rice.

    Arborio.

Frying the rice

  1. Heat the oil and fry the rice. Heat the olive oil in a saucepan over medium heat and let it warm up a little to get rid of the specific smell of natural oil. Usually a clove of garlic is fried in the oil for this (and removed afterwards), but you can do without it. Fry the dry Arborio rice in the prepared oil for 2-3 minutes, stirring fairly vigorously. The rice should be coated with a film of olive oil and become slightly translucent.

    Frying the rice.

  2. Add the raisins, nuts and the first portion of liquid. Season the rice with a pinch of salt and add the rinsed raisins and, if you like, 1 tbsp of water infused with rose petals. Many people dislike the smell of rose oil, so this step is optional. If that works for you, you can add a pinch of vanilla.

    Adding the raisins.

    Add the chopped nuts and pour half a cup of boiling water (100 ml) or vegetable broth over the rice. All the liquid needs to be absorbed by the rice.

    Adding the nuts.

Cooking with wine

  1. Pour in the red wine, which gives the dish its color and turns the rice pink. You need very little wine, just 1-2 tbsp. The red wine can be semi-dry or sweet, it makes no difference. And of course the wine should be natural, not a chemical reagent. Add a little water or broth, stir everything and leave over low heat until the rice has absorbed all the wine. In a few minutes the rice will take up the wine and the porridge will turn a pleasant pink color.

    Adding the red wine.

  1. Bring the rice almost to doneness, adding hot broth or water in small portions and stirring. Add the next portion only after the previous one has been absorbed.

    Adding the liquid.

  2. Add the sugar and finish cooking. When the pink rice is almost cooked, add sugar to taste. Add one more portion of liquid and cook the rice for a few minutes, until almost all the liquid has been absorbed and the rice is soft: the grains should be done, with a slight firmness in the center. In total, the rice cooks for about 18 minutes from the first portion of liquid. In the end, the rice porridge with raisins should be fully cooked and loose, like a not-too-thick porridge.

    The finished rice.

Serving

  1. Spoon the rice onto plates and sprinkle with grated Parmesan. Serve right away, while the risotto is hot and loose.

    Pink risotto

    The porridge comes out a delicate pink color and slightly sweet in taste.

Calories and macros

660 kcal

Serving ≈ 330 g

  • Protein11 g7% of kcal
  • Fat27 g38% of kcal
  • Carbs90 g55% of kcal

100 g201 kcalProtein 3.4 gFat 8.3 gCarbs 27.4 g

Calculated from the recipe ingredients, excluding salt and spices. Data: USDA and Matvaretabellen.

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