My last assignment for the semester was turned in on Tuesday, and basically three finals stand between between me and the summer! (i have them on Tuesday, Wednesday, AND Thursday morning).

So to procrastinate on studying for finals, I cooked dinner instead today. =p

(it didn't really take that long; i don't usually cook dinner during term just because i'm too lazy when there's a lot of assignments and exams - i really only cook about 3 times in one semester)

Mushroom Risotto!
(serves two)

1 cup arborio rice (this kind of rice is sticker and fatter than normal rice to get the consistency you see in risotto)
1/3 can of beef stock (in retrospect, it might have been better to use vegetable stock because beef stock is kind of thick...)
1/2 can of water
1/3 of one onion, chopped into small pieces
4 cloves of garlic, crushed
one box of mushrooms
box of roast beef from supermarket deli
some fresh thyme
some olive oil/butter
salt and pepper to taste

1. Wash the rice once with cold water, and place in small saucepan.
2. Add beef stock and water to rice.

3. Place rice on the stove on high heat, without lid, until the water boils.
4. Adjust the heat to "simmer," and cover the saucepan with a lid. Cook until you can see that most of the water has been absorbed into the rice (takes about 15-20 minutes)

5. In the meantime, sauté the onion and the garlic with olive oil (or butter), until they turn golden brown (and smells really good).

6. Add in the mushrooms once the aroma from the onion and garlic has developed.

7. Stir-fry the mushrooms. About a few minutes into the process, a lot of water will come out from the mushrooms that you are sautéing. Keep going at it until all of that water has evaporated (or about to disappear).

8. Season the mushrooms with salt and pepper once it looks about finished.

9. During this time, take the rice that you've been cooking in beef stock and mix it in with the mushrooms. (if the rice finished cooking before you've finished with the mushrooms, you should take the rice off the stove before it burns).

10. Take the risotto off the stove once the rice and mushrooms have blended together and the rice has absorbed all the remaining moisture in the pan!

11. Garnish with fresh thyme, and add roast beef for a yummy meal! (you can add kimchi too, but I eat kimchi with literally anything)

(i wish i had some white wine to add when cooking the mushrooms =p it would make it smell so good!)

Yupyup.

Back to studying for finals =p

Comments (Closed after 30 days to reduce spam)

That looks REALLY good. Good luck for your finals.

Posted by: 0 on May 13, 2009

This looks terrible. You should have let me cook some Hamburger Helper for you.

Posted by: Steve on May 13, 2009

The rice in the first pic looks like maggots....

Posted by: Uhnaunimuss on May 13, 2009

do you mean stickier and fatter?

final result looks good

Posted by: s on May 13, 2009

You should saute the rice for a few minutes in some olive oil until they start to sheen and become semi-translucent. Then start adding the stock and white wine (if you are using that). Try it, it works a lot better. It helps get the starchs outta the rice, creating a much nicer sauce.

My 2 cents!

Posted by: Kiss '13 on May 13, 2009

He ate it ALL.

MEH!

Posted by: Aditi '12 on May 14, 2009

Is a culinary photography showdown brewing amongst the bloggers?

Posted by: Sam Range '13 on May 14, 2009

Hahahah, I doubt Chris is trying to compete. No one could beat Yan at that XD

But it does look rather good :F

Posted by: NathanArce on May 14, 2009

No; we just realized that you guys wouldn't comment on stuff unless the entry had pictures of food in it =p

I'm just going along with the trend...

Posted by: Oasis '11 on May 14, 2009

@Oasis '11
Well in that case . . . *goes off to construct blog entry*

Posted by: Snively on May 14, 2009

Chris, the apps... does it matter if I'm a 100% Taiwanese have never lived in the us before? Friends at Harvard said it matters! Said there's something about the precentage of international students who get admitted...

Posted by: tenth grader from Taiwan on May 14, 2009

^ I don't understand your question. Matter in terms of what? Admissions? If you're 100% Taiwanese and don't have Permanent Residency or US citizenship, then yes, there is a quota for international students.

Posted by: Oasis '11 on May 14, 2009

My favorite one is pea risotto YUM! I'm hungry.
I made ANZAC biscuits during my AP week lol. I guess everyone cooks to procrastinate.

Posted by: Sparky ('14?) on May 14, 2009

Not everyone cooks to procrastinate. When I procrastinate, I download a couple of eBooks, load 'em up on my reader and bury myself in a good thriller.

I guess I'm too lazy to cook even to procrastinate.

Posted by: Labib Rahman ('14?) on May 15, 2009

Ok, one question. I know you might be too to answer this but I'll just ask.

You're probably the only blogger who is into debate. So what's debating like at MIT? Is it encouraged? Are there a lot of debaters?

Thanks.

Posted by: Labib Rahman ('14?) on May 15, 2009

This looks pretty good.. I've been avoiding cooking risotto just from people telling me it takes a while to cool.

Posted by: mac flashcard software on May 15, 2009

@ Labib -

Debating is pretty awesome here. We just won an international tournament at England the first time we participated, beating out schools like Cambridge, Oxford, Harvard...etc. Not bad for a "tech" school that all those liberal-artsy schools mock at. =p

The actual debate team's fairly small, around 10-15 committed regulars. However, they have so many tournaments in a year (often every other weekend, even every weekend sometimes) that everyone gets a chance to go. There are no tryouts for the team, so you're free to join their practices starting out with no background (in fact, some of their really good debaters started out not having done debate before MIT). It's a good time and you should definitely explore it if interested in debate.

Posted by: Oasis '11 on May 16, 2009

Comments have been closed.