Creative Italian cuisine… Risotto prugne, pancetta and yogurt

Today I feel creative, so I have decided to experiment a little! I love cooking and cooking experiments and this one was a success!

Risotto is considered a “primo“, a first course, to have as an alternative to a pasta dish. Rice recipes are very popular in Italy and risotto is, in my opinion, one of the easiest things to prepare and one of the best dishes to cook when you don’t have much left in the fridge.

Risotto prugne, pancetta and yogurt

Ingredients

• butter
• 1 onion
• pancetta cubes or a thick slice of pancetta
• prunes ( you can use fresh plums in the summer)
• rice (40 to 60 grams per person)
• vinsanto (or any other sweetish wine)
• water or vegetable broth
• plain whole-fat yogurt

Melt butter in a pan or casserole and add thinly sliced onions. Let cook for 5 to 10 minutes on low heat. Add pancetta cubes and cook for 5 more minutes. Add prunes and cook for 5 minutes more. Add rice and stir for 3 minutes so that it does not burn. When it becomes transparent, add a drop of vinsanto and let it evaporate. Add hot water or vegetable broth to cover the rice, and keep adding it until the rice is cooked. Do not add too much water if the rice is almost ready, as it must have completely evaporated by the time to rice is properly cooked. Add a few tablespoons of yogurt, let the risotto thicken on low heat and… buon appetito!

The various phases are “documented” in the slide show below. To see larger photos, click on the symbol in right-hand bottom corner.