Location: My tiny kitchen

The result was surprisingly amazing. I’ve always been skeptical at the concept of mixing spinach into risotto, no matter how many times I’ve seen celebrity chefs such as David Rocco and Jamie Oliver happily cooked their risotto and spinach on their shows. The idea of eating soft and wilted small pieces of green leaves with starchy, creamy rice suggests only the taste of baby food to me. I don’t know what has gotten to me follow suit – maybe it’s the lack of vegetables and fruits in my recent diet, or maybe I’m just bored of making my regular plain risotto – but wow, that was some great dish of risotto. Of course, the big lump of cream cheese that I mixed into the rice in the last step made everything tasted rich and less like a bland vegetarian dish.

This dish is for you, baby sister, who cooked risotto for 100 people.

This recipe serves 4 people.
You will need 1 1/2 cup of risotto. I don’t know if I’m correct, but I notice that when risotto has been stored for a long time, it doesn’t become very creamy once it has been cooked. My experience is “new rice” or rice that is just bought from store is most creamy.

I used one package of frozen chopped spinach in this recipe. You can use fresh spinach but you will need to blanch, squeeze out the water and then finally chop the spinach. I opted for convenience and I used chopped frozen spinach since it gives the same taste.

Thaw the spinach.

Have 2 cups of chicken stock and 1/2 cup of cream cheese ready.

In a quart pan, put in 1 tbsp of butter, 1 tbsp of olive oil and 1 tbsp of minced garlic. Heat the butter until it is melted.

Put in the risotto and coat the rice thoroughly with butter, oil and garlic.

Add in chicken stock until the rice is just covered.

Let the soup and the rice to cook. If the rice is boiling too vigorously, turn the heat down to medium and let the rice shimmer. When all the liquid has been reduced, add stock again till the rice is just covered.

Repeat the process of add stock, shimmer till stock is reduced, add more stock until the rice has been fully cooked. You don’t have to stir the rice constantly. I stir the rice only after stock has been added and I leave the rice alone until all the liquid is evaporated.

It took me about 20 minutes to cook the rice. To tell if the rice is cooked, taste them. This is how my rice looked like when they are cooked:

Once the rice is cooked, make sure the heat is at high and mix in the spinach and 1/2 cup of cream cheese.

Thoroughly incorporate the spinach and cream cheese into the rice. After incorporating, pour in 1/2 cup of chicken stock. Turn the heat off and cover the quart pan. Let the rice stand for 10 to 15 minutes. The extra stock will be absorbed by the rice and by doing so, the spinach, cream cheese and rice will bind nicely together to create a sauce.

Once the rice has absorbed the liquid, put in salt and pepper to taste. If you find your risotto too dry, add in a little more stock. Like cooking pastas, it is difficult to say what the exact and correct amount of liquid should be added. It is all about judging how dry the rice is and add in more liquid when necessary. To prevent from adding too much liquid, add only a little amount of liquid at a time and then add in more if needed.

I served my spinach cream cheese risotto with a sliced ribeye steak (you gotta have SOME meat, right?).