Cooking journal nov & dec '25

I paused cooking journals because I think one per month is too frequent. From now on, I'll be doing them one every 2-3 months.

November:

risotto with sausage

My Italian neighbor made this for my roommates and I. I hung out with him in the kitchen while he made it so I could learn the recipe. My Italian neighbor is the most aggressively Italian person I have ever met. He is 27, and a bartender. He wears silk neck kerchiefs and loafers with no show socks. His favorite hobbies are complaining about everything, flirting with older women, and fortunately for me, cooking. He told me that back in Sicily, he was once a line cook for one week, but then was fired for being too slow.

ingredients (this recipe serves 4 people):

1 carrot

1/2 onion or 1 small onion

1 leek

1 tomato

1 clove of garlic

1 bag of arborio rice

pork sausage (out of casing, but also doesn't matter)

butter

1/2 cup dry white wine

parmesan cheese

instructions:

Put the leek, onion, garlic clove, tomato, and carrot into a medium-large pot full of water. Boil, then cover and bring down to a low simmer for at least 45 minutes.

In a large, shallow pan, melt some butter over medium-high heat, and add arborio rice, idk how much exactly but probably around 2 cups. Sauté the rice until fragrant and translucent. It should stick to the pan slightly. Add most of the white wine to get the rice unstuck from the bottom of the pan. Let it evaporate most of the way. But it's important that it doesn't completely evaporate. Lower the heat to medium-low.

Add in a label of the vegetable broth and let that mostly evaporate too. Stir the rice frequently to avoid it sticking to the pan and burning.

Repeat this process for literally forever until the rice finally finishes cooking. The grains should be kind of al dente, if they are super soft or mushy it is overcooked. My neighbor passed the time by playing Italian music from the 80's and gossiping. I recommend doing something similar.

Once done, remove it off the heat and stir it vigorously with a wooden spoon. This aerates the rice and makes the texture fluffier. Carefully fold in slices of cold butter to cool it off a bit, and then after add grated parmesan cheese and salt to taste.

This is a pretty basic risotto base that could be fine on its own or with vegetables. I'd really like to try making it with porcini mushroom since I know that's a popular flavor, and I love mushrooms. I also went to a restaurant that added saffron to the risotto and topped it with some blanched veg. I'd like to replicate that at some point.

If you are having it with sausage, form the pork sausage into little balls and pan fry until golden. Take them off the pan and plate them on top of the risotto. With the remaining white wine, deglaze the pan by pouring it over the brown crispy residue at the bottom of the pan (fun fact: it is called the fond), and incorporate together using a wooden spoon. Add a bit of vegetable broth and reduce until it is slightly but not completely thick. Add butter until it becomes a smooth sauce, and pour on top of the risotto/meatballs.

It was divine. And honestly other than the patience required, really not very difficult. I think the sausage is a bit much given that the risotto itself is already really heavy. I think I wouldn't make it like that unless it was for someone who specifically wanted meat. I feel like it would also be good with something like beef stew that has a lot of juices that the rice can absorb. That would be insanely heavy, but I think really delicious. But like I mentioned, I'd also really like to made a mushroom or other vegetarian version of some sort in the future. Especially when the season changes and there are more bright spring veggies that can balance out the heaviness of the risotto. I think that would be delightful.

milanesa de pollo with potato

This is a very European dish. It's just breaded chicken and plain boiled potatoes. It is just very yummy and also very easy, and very hardy for the winter months when I want a really heavy and filling and warm meal.

I get the chicken at a local butcher a few blocks away from me. The butchers are super nice and friendly and always joke around with me. One of the butchers, who I'm pretty sure is the owner, lives above the shop. He has a young daughter, and I see his wife bring her down to say hi to him while he's working once in a while. Pollo Milanesa is a very popular dish here in restaurants and in people's homes, so every butcher shop carries it, each with their own slight variation on the recipe. It's just breaded filleted chicken breast. This place seasons pretty lightly, with pepper, dried parsley, and I think a bit of parmesan cheese.

I fry it in olive oil and boil some chopped potatoes on the side. And I try to sauté some sort of vegetable too but tbh that doesn't always happen. It is kind of bland but also kind of comforting'cause its fried and warm and filling. Very kid menu meal in a good way, like mac n cheese.

I have a really hard time cooking here because my kitchen isn't great, I don't have all my usual kitchen gadgets, and I don't have access to my usual catalog of recipes because the availability of ingredients is really different here. Like I think part of why European food is so bland is just that not bland ingredients are really hard to find. As someone who enjoys cooking and eating, this has been a major bummer, even if an expected one. I think the thing that makes me homesick the most (aside from people of course) is food.

I'm trying to adjust my tastes a bit and try more local foods/ingredients/dishes since that is what's mostly available. This is one of the only local dishes that is both easy to make and enjoyable to me. I think it's quite tasty and it's always a pleasant part of my evening to walk through the freezing cold to the butcher and get rewarded with a juicy crunchy chicken treat that requires no effort.

December, month of legumes:

red lentil soup

I made lentil soup a few times with red lentils since I really like dal and red lentils are really popular and easy to obtain here. The first time, I made it with leeks, shallots, chopped butternut squash, cumin, and coconut milk. It was edible, but kind of bland and nasty. I'm not really sure why because all the aromatics in there are pretty flavorful but they all just tasted like water. The second time I tried to follow a dal recipe and made it with cumin seeds, turmeric, whole dried chiles, fresh ginger, and fresh cilantro. And it was still find of bland and nasty. I tried it a third time with the same recipe but just tried to adjust the ratios of spices, and it was only marginally better. It is frustrating because I'm not exactly sure what's going wrong. Maybe I have the wrong spices or ingredients. Or something is wrong with my technique. I have put my experimenting on hiatus after getting stuck with one too many pots full of nasty soup. Tbh I just don't like lentils that much which might be part of it. But I do really love dal and other red lentil soups that I've had at restaurants, so I do think I'm the problem. I'm going to keep experimenting at a later date. But this will be a challenge to crack I think.

pasta with chickpeas and pepper

I have been trying to eat more protein and calories since it is winter and I feel like my body requires more energy to fend off the cold. I also think I lost a pound or two that I've been trying to gain back when I got the flu and couldn't stomach anything but oatmeal, chicken broth, and tea for like 2 weeks. I have pasta with tomato sauce a lot because it's the best, and I was thinking that it might be good to add chickpeas for some added carbs and protein.

When I visited my cousin, she happened to suggest pasta with tomato sauce and chickpeas for dinner one night. She's vegetarian and says she's always done that to add protein. That night, she also happened to have a red bell pepper and onion on hand. I knew the bell pepper would really make this dish.

ingredients:

1 red bell pepper

Chile flakes

herbs de province or any herb blend of oregano, rosemary, marjoram, thyme, etc.

pasta

canned tomato

canned or cooked chickpeas

1 clove of garlic

1/2 and onion

Finely dice the onion and sauté in a pan with fine-medium diced bell pepper in olive oil. Add chile flakes and herbs to the pan at this stage. I'm a big advocate for toasting your spices as much as you can. Adding chile flakes at this stage imparts the oil with the chile a bit and just opens up the flavor of the chile. It suddenly becomes brighter and deeper in flavor. Toasting dried chiles is a big deal in Mexican cuisine, you don't always do it but it is acknowledged that it changes the flavor of the dish a lot if you do. But I really recommend toasting/frying any spice whenever possible. I haven't always done this and idk when I started doing it regularly, but I will never turn back. It actually does make a difference and takes little to no effort if you're already sautéing onions or garlic.

I feel like it doesn't matter as much with herbs, so I either add the herbs in at this point or later, I haven't noticed a huge difference. At this point, add the chopped or grated garlic, and then once that fries for a second, add the chickpeas without the water (fun fact: garbanzo bean water is called aquafaba for some reason, and can be used as a vegan egg white substitute in meringue dessert recipes idk where I heard that). At this point, it will smell and taste amazing. I think just the chickpeas with the onion and garlic and pepper would be great as a side dish or on its own as well. Idk if there is a point to sautéing the chickpeas before adding the tomato sauce, the second time I made this I didn't do it and I don't think there was a huge difference. But that is what feels right to me so I will continue to do that.

Then add tomato. I did a roughly 40/60 ratio of chickpeas to tomato, but it really doesn't matter it's just to taste. Idk if fresh tomato would be good for this dish, I feel like it would be too watery sine the garbanzo kind of absorbs a lot of the tomato. But maybe I'll try someday, I wonder if it would make the flavor more bright and summery rather than hearty and wintery. If it's too dry, add some chickpea water aka aquafaba or regular water.

I let it simmer for a few minutes until I got bored of waiting and it felt right. Then I put over plain pasta. It is sooo good. And ridiculously easy to make and shelf stable. I should have made this ages ago. It will definitely be on my rotation of go-to meals from now on.