Risotto with Lemon Thyme, Sliced Prosciutto, Pecorino and Crumbled Goat's Cheese

Long weekend... I love long weekends! Especially if it's an EXTRA long weekend! Haha... My hubby and I decided to take friday off as well, to make the long weekend extra long! To be honest, we didn't have much plan on what to do, except for taking our dog Mochi out to have some fun! Nothing planned... What does that mean? It means more time to cook! Yes! I have spent quite some time in the kitchen in these 4 days! 

I was watching Masterchef the other day, and poor Jimmy had to do two dishes in the bottom 10 challenge because his partner decided to drop out. He ended up making a risotto and a strawberry (or raspberry!??! can't remember) tart. The judges commented his risotto as poorly made!!! I wonder what went wrong there! 

After the Masterchef inspiration, I've decided to make risotto as dinner on friday night - the first project. I flipped through all my Jamie Oliver books (thanks to Alice for getting me the collection!) because I do recall that his books have a lot of pasta and risotto recipes in them!! One that caught my eye was the risotto with lemon thyme, prosciutto and cheese! 

Serves 3

Ingredients:

500ml chicken stock

1 tbsp olive oil

1 medium onion

1 cloves of garlic

200g risotto rice

1 wine glass of dry white wine

Sea salt and freshly ground black pepper

35g butter

1 good handfuls of fresh lemon thyme, leaves picked

50g percorino cheese

70g goat cheese

4 slices prosciutto

1. Heat the stock. In a separate pan heat the olive oil, add the onion and garlic and fry slowly for about 4min. When the vegetables have softened, add the rice and turn up the heat. 

2. Keep stirring the rice until translucent. Add the wine and keep stirring.

3. Once the wine has cooked into the rice, add your first ladle of hot stock, lemon thyme and a good pinch of salt. Turn down the heat to a simmer so the rice doesn't cook too quickly on the outside. Keep stirring and adding ladles of stock one by one, allowing each ladlefuls to be absorbed before adding the next.

4. Remove from heat and add butter and percorino cheese. place a lid on the pan and allow to site for 2-3 min. 

5. Add prosciutto just before eating and serve with the goat's cheese. Scatter with a little extra thyme leaves. 

This is the BEST risotto I've ever made, not that my cooking skills has improved, but this recipe is just awesome!!!! It's creamy, gluey and full of flavour, the lemon thyme was able to balance out the creaminess due to it's citricy fragrant/flavour. This recipe serves 3, but between my hubby and I, we polished off every grain of rice. Although there wasn't much meat in the dish, my hubby still said "I don't want to stop eating this dish..."

This dish required the use of goat cheese, but if you don't like the taste of goat cheese, you can always replace it with ricotta. But I think the sour taste in the goat cheese helps to break up the thick and gluey texture of this risotto! Your choice! I think it will still taste good with the ricotta. 

This is THE DISH that I'll definitely make again!!!