Kale & chard risotto

I have a CSA, which means that I have a lot of cooking greens to cope with on a weekly basis. It's not that I get a lot of kale, etc., at once, it's just that it builds up after two or three weeks if you don't do anything with it right away. Last summer I did a lot more cooking green omelettes, but I haven't gotten back into that this summer yet.

But, I did try something new: cooking green risotto. Here's how I did it.

First, pour 4-5 cups of stock (vegetable or chicken) into a small pot and heat to boiling. This time, I used two cups of stock, two cups of water, and a handful of mushroom stems I saved from a squash/scallion/mushroom pizza yesterday. (Damn, I forgot to take photos of that.)

While that is heating up, chop two or three bunches of cooking greens. I had two bunches of kale and one bunch of chard. Be sure to rinse the greens if they are dirty, and always discard the stems. Unless you have a rabbit, in which case he gets them.

Cook the greens in a large pan with 2 tbsp. butter and 1 tbsp. vegetable oil. I suppose you could use whatever kind of oil you want, but I like adding butter to risotto for extra creaminess.

After cooking down for 5 minutes or so, add 1.5 cups arborio rice.


Supposedly the type of rice is important, since this rice cooks up creamier. I think it has something to do with the starch.

After coating the rice in the oil/butter and greens, add 2/3 cup white wine. Cook down until it is somewhat dry, then add a ladle or two of the hot stock. Stir and cook until the mixture gets somewhat dry again, then keep adding stock by ladle-fuls.


Eventually you should get a nice creamy mixture, like above. I added some minced scallions, juice of half a lemon, zest of half a lemon, and the last bit I could grate out of my hunk of parmigiano reggiano.

You can do a risotto, too, using whatever vegetables you have in your kitchen, provided that you keep the proportions of rice (1.5 cups) to liquid (2/3 cup wine, 4 cups stock) the same. Bon appetit!