Making Mushroom Risotto with Couscous + Refika Tips and Tricks | From my Favorite Recipes!

Refika’s Kitchen
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Today I’m going to be cooking one my favorite inventions, I guess I could call it a Turkish-Italian mash ups — the one and only couscous risotto. Couscous is a small beanlike pasta that we traditionally often cook as a standalone dish, but today I will be treating it as risotto rice, throwing in mushrooms, cheese, heavy cream, and some crispy pastırma with a touch of angelic truffle oil to make it into something that’ll take you on a delicious journey! Enjoy today’s episode and don’t forget to let us know how your recipe turned out! 😍

250 gr couscous (1 cup+ 2 tablespoons, you can use any sized couscous, smaller ones cook quicker)
400 gr chestnut mushrooms, diced
1 onion, halved and sliced
4 cloves of garlic, sliced
80 gr İzmir Tulum Cheese, grated (60 gr parmesan or pecorino do great as well)
100 ml heavy cream (10 tablespoons)
5 tablespoons olive oil
1 tablespoon butter
2 tablespoons truffle oil
650 ml brown beef stock, hot (plus 300 ml or more hot water if needed)
1 small bunch of chives, finely chopped
4 sprigs of thyme, leaves picked
1/2 freshly grated nutmeg
1 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper
Milk foam (optional)
Crispy Pastırma
6 slices of pastırma (or any cured meat)
1 teaspoon butter

• In a large pan, heat the olive oil and butter. Then add the onion. Slowly fry for two minutes until the onions are slightly browned
• Turn the heat up, add the mushrooms in two batches and give it a stir. Adding all the mushrooms at once may cause them to boil instead of fry.
•After the mushrooms are browned and onions are caramelised-around one and half minutes- add the couscous, garlic, salt and freshly ground black pepper and brown the couscous as well.
• Add the first ladle of hot stock. Turn the heat down and keep stirring. After the stock is absorbed by couscous, add another ladle into the pan.
• Continue adding stock until couscous is soft. You can carry on with boiling water after you used up all of the stock.
• Meanwhile, heat the butter in a cast iron pan and crisp the pastırma slices. Flip them occasionally.
• Stir the heavy cream and cheese into the risotto.
• Add the chives, thyme and grate half nutmeg. Finally, – and heavenly! – remove from heat and add the truffle oil.
• Give it a last stir and your couscous risotto is ready! Top with crispy pastırma and a sprinkle of chives. Serve or dig in immediately! If you want to make your risotto even more posh, spoon some milk foam on top.