Risotto with Tomatoes and Paprika

Name: Risotto with Tomatoes and Red Pepper Recipe
Prep time: 10 min
Cook time: 30 min
Total time: 40 min
Cuisine: Italian cuisine
Ingredients: Arborio rice 1 cup (180 g); Broth (vegetable or chicken) 0.8–1 l; Olive oil 2 tbsp; Sweet red bell pepper 1; Ripe tomato 2; Onion 1; Garlic 1-2 cloves; Parmesan 30 g; Salt 4–5 g; Black pepper to taste

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40 mins

Risotto with tomatoes is the simplest vegetable risotto, considering that risotto can be made with just about anything. The ingredients usually come from local traditions and from what the local market has to offer. And, of course, from the season.

In northern Italy, in the Lombardy region, there is a town whose culinary traditions are closely tied to sweet peppers, paprika. Voghera is a small town of fewer than 40 thousand people. Besides its special cooking traditions, the town is known for its famous natives: the fashion designer Valentino and the Maserati brothers, founders of the Maserati car company.

The cuisine of Voghera (Vogherese) is simple and straightforward, and has always been closely tied to farm produce. Its gastronomic traditions took shape over decades under the influence of neighboring cuisines. The main focus is vegetables, most often peppers. Risotto with seafood is cooked less often.

Ever since peppers first appeared in Europe, the cuisine of Voghera has carefully kept recipes in which the pepper plays the leading role. And then there is risotto, the most characteristic dish of northern Italy.

The point of risotto with tomatoes and peppers is the combination of high-starch rice, red peppers and tomato. The risotto is sprinkled with Parmesan, which rounds out the flavor and improves the texture of the dish. For more on the rice and broth, see the recipe for how to make risotto. If you love peppers, try risotto with sweet peppers.

Ingredients

2 servings

Arborio rice 1 cup (180 g)
Broth (vegetable or chicken) 0.8–1 l
Olive oil 2 tbsp
Sweet red bell pepper 1
Ripe tomato 2
Onion 1
Garlic 1-2 cloves
Parmesan 30 g
Salt 4–5 g
Black pepper to taste

Step-by-step recipe

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Preparing the ingredients

Risotto needs Italian rice with a high starch content. Such rice can absorb several times its own volume of liquid, whether water, broth or stock. The most common rice varieties for risotto are Arborio, Carnaroli and Baldo.

For risotto with peppers you need a small, ripe, red sweet pepper and ripe tomatoes. They will give the risotto its color.

Prepare the vegetables. Remove the seeds and stem from the red bell pepper and dice it finely, in pieces half the size you would cut for a vinegret salad. Peel and finely chop the onion. Scald the tomatoes with boiling water, remove the seeds and skin, and chop the flesh with a knife. Do not chop it too finely.

Frying the vegetables and rice

Flavor the oil with garlic. Heat the olive oil in a saucepan over medium heat and fry the peeled, crushed garlic cloves in it. When the garlic starts to darken and has flavored the oil, throw it away.
Fry the chopped onion in the olive oil until soft. It is enough for the onion to just become soft, you do not need to fry it until golden.
Add the chopped red pepper to the onion, season lightly with salt and pepper to taste. Fry the onion and pepper, stirring fairly often, until the pepper is soft and starts to change color.
Add the Arborio rice to the fried vegetables and fry everything together for 2-3 mins, stirring.

Cooking the risotto

Broth (vegetable, chicken or meat) is the usual liquid used for making risotto. For vegetable broth, it is worth boiling a carrot, an onion, soup roots, a potato and so on in the right amount of water beforehand. Many people do not bother and add plain water from the kettle or, well, what can you do, dissolve a bouillon cube in boiling water.

Pour a cup of broth (200 ml) into the saucepan and stir the rice and vegetables. After it comes to a boil, turn the heat down, cover the saucepan with a lid and cook the risotto over low heat.
When the first portion of liquid has been absorbed by the rice, add boiling broth in small portions, adding the next portion only after the rice has absorbed the previous one. Arborio takes 20-25 mins to cook.
When the rice is almost done, add the chopped tomato flesh and salt the risotto a little more.
Keep cooking over the lowest heat you can manage. The rice should become soft and creamy, but each grain should still have a barely noticeable firm center. Keep adding broth to the rice until the rice with tomatoes looks like ordinary rice porridge.
Sprinkle the rice and tomatoes with Parmesan grated on a fine grater and stir; keep a little Parmesan for serving.

Serving

Spoon the rice with tomatoes onto small plates and sprinkle with the remaining Parmesan.
Serve the risotto hot. It is a great breakfast dish that takes little time to cook and will keep you full until lunch.

Calories and macros

585 kcal

Serving ≈ 510 g

Protein14 g10% of kcal
Fat19 g30% of kcal
Carbs84 g60% of kcal

100 g115 kcalProtein 2.8 gFat 3.7 gCarbs 16.5 g

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

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