Maltese Sausage & Prune risotto

Maltese Sausage & Prune Risotto 

Last week C.S. presented me with 4 sausages... Something between nicely spiced maltese sausages and salami. Her brother makes the Maltese sausages himself and then hangs them to dry, giving them a wonderful texture. We ate one straight away, then forgot about them in the pre-Patches madness, until today. I saw the package when I opened the fridge as soon as I woke up this morning and I must guiltily admit I ate a whole one for breakfast. YUM! I know my blood pressure will not be low for a while now :)

Dried Maltese Sausage

I was wondering what to do with the rest of the sausages... (lest I be tempted to finish off the remaining 2 all by myself) until I remembered another forgotten ingredient: Vialone Nano rice, kindly given to us by Eatmania at the end of the Rice Degustation event, a few weeks back. Photos of the event here.

The Rice Sample we were given by Eatmania

Since that event, my mind has been mulling around ideas of how to best use this special rice, and today I decided that combining it with another special ingredient (the sausages) sounded like a good idea. Which, may I humbly say, it was!

Chopped Sausage

Maltese sausages are all made to the same basic recipe, however each butcher will spice it to his own liking... these had a definite taste of cumin seeds and I decided that they would pair up nicely with prunes. So here it goes: dried Maltese sausage and Prune Risotto. Delicious!

Ps. I noticed that the Vialone Nano is actually much creamier than any other rice I tried before... My previous favourite was Carnarolo, but I believe this might change. The rice also remained nicely separate, despite the creaminess, and retained a nice bite.I might need to get myself a good stock of this rice!

Chopped Prunes

 Dried Maltese Sausage & Prune Risotto

Ingredients

• 500g Vialone Nano rice
• 2 maltese sausages (preferably dried), skinned and diced
• 100g Prunes, diced
• 3 Thin slices streaky bacon, diced
• 1 Large onion, finely chopped
• 3 Tsps English Mustard
• 2 Tbsp Olive oil
• 2 Tbsp Butter
• 1.25 L Chicken stock
• 250ml White wine
• 1 cup peas
• 4 heaped Tbsp Parmesan cheese + more for serving

Method

1. Heat 1Tbsp of the olive oil in a pan and fry the sausage for a couple of minutes, together with a very small handful of the finely chopped onion.
2. Add the bacon and continue stiring until the bacon is nicely browned. 
3. Add the white wine and the prunes, stiring viguorosly to deglaze the pan.
4. Add half the mustard and reserve the rest. Stir until the mustard is blended in and take the pan off the heat.
5. Keep the chicken stock warm over low heat.
6. In a clean pan, heat the butter and the remaining oil. Add the rest of the onions.
7. Sweat the onion until translucent, taking care not to let the onion brown. 
8. Turn heat up to high and add the rice. Cook for 2-3 minutes, stirring continuously until the rice is coated with the oil/butter mixture.
9. Turn heat down to low and add 1/2 a cup of wine and stir continuously until it is almost all absorbed.
10. Proceed to add the rest of the wine until it has all been absorbed.
11. Start adding the stock 1/2 cup a at a time, stirring continuously until it is absorbed. Do not add the next cup of stock until previous addition has been absorbed.
12. When around 1/3rd of the stock remains, add the sausage/prune mixture to the rice.
13. Once all stock has been added, taste rice to ensure that it's properly cooked. It should still have a little bite but should not be crunchy.
14. Add the peas and the rest of the mustard. Stir well until mixed, remove the ristotto from heat and stir in parmesan.
15. Serve immediately with more parmesan.
16. Enjoy! :)

Delicious Risotto! Must make again SOOON!