Recipe corner – Oven baked roasted red pepper and chorizo risotto

I must be on track at the moment, because this is the second recipe I’ve posted in a week! It’s so tasty though, I felt I had to share.
I love risotto, and this oven baked specimen means that you don’t have to spend a long time standing and stirring at the hob (not that this is a task that I object to particularly). The resulting texture is slightly less creamy than a traditional risotto – probably more akin to a paella.

This is an adaptation…an evolution, if you will, of a recipe that originally appeared on the Good Food magazine website. If you don’t already check this site out then go on, pop across now (as long as you come back here to copy this down afterwards). It has some fantastic, simple ideas for meals, plus, most of the recipes include a full nutritional breakdown which makes them easy to work into your day.

For the purposes of this post, I’ve calculated the points based on the individual ingredients. There are a few tweaks you could make to make it less pointy:

o Make it vegetarian by getting rid of the chorizo – total saving, 3 propoints per portion. Up the paprika a little if you do this for an extra flavour kick.

o Ditch the olive oil – total saving 2 propoints per portion. Use a spray instead.

o Use extra stock in place of the wine – total saving 1 propoint per portion.

o Reduce the total amount of Parmesan in the recipe by half (I wouldn’t ditch it altogether as it does add a lovely umami flavour) – total saving – 1 propoint per portion.

Ingredients

Tbsp olive oil
Red pepper, cut into quarter pieces
Red onion, finely chopped
Clove of garlic, crushed
50g chorizo sausage, diced
150g risotto rice
50ml white wine
½ tsp smoked paprika
½ tsp dried chilli flakes (opt)
200g (one small tin) chopped tomatoes

Tbsp balsamic vinegar
250ml veg or chicken stock
30g Parmesan, finely grated

Serves 2 / 15 pro points per portion

Firstly, roast your pepper. I find the easiest way to do this is to put the four pieces, skin side up, on a baking tray and stick them under a hot grill for 10-20 mins until the skin is blackened. Transfer the pepper into a plastic bag and cool. The skin will then slip off easily. Dice the flesh of the pepper.

In an ovenproof dish, warm the olive oil and add the chorizo. Cook for a while: the chorizo itself will release more oil as it heats up. Tip in the onion and the pepper, cook for several minutes until softening, then add the garlic and spices and cook for a minute or so more until the “raw” garlic smell is no longer present (I find adding the onion and garlic at the same time, as many recipes suggest, just causes the garlic to burn).

Now stir in your risotto rice, and make sure it is coated in the lovely, orangey oil. Then add the wine and allow to bubble down to almost nothing. Pour over the stock, tomatoes and add a good lug of balsamic vinegar for sweetness, cover the dish and transfer to a preheated oven (200 or 180 fan) for 25 minutes.

Stir through the Parmesan cheese before serving.