Cauliflower risotto

Another thing that sounds alarmingly like a 'handy hints to save money in the kitchen' recipe - not that there's anything wrong with that, of course. It sounds a bit grim, but actually the idea was to replace most of the rice with cauliflower, to keep the carbs low-ish.

I love risotto, but I think the real star of the show is the butter, the cream, and the cheese. And cauliflower, apart from being a surprisingly good rice substitute, goes uncannily well with mushrooms. It brings out the earthiness - think cauliflower soup with truffle oil, if in any doubt. So I surmised that, even apart from the carb aspect, cauliflower might be a good ingredient in a mushroom risotto. Plus, we all know how well cauliflower goes with cheese.

It was pretty simple. Onion, celery, garlic, mushrooms, softened in butter; then a dash of chicken stock and white wine, a little rice, and precooked cauliflower. Proceed as normal, mushing up the cauliflower as you go and bearing in mind that less liquid will be needed because there's much less rice to soak it up. Deluge with cream and parmesan at the end.

It looked extremely authentic. You might guess from the taste, or the texture, that it wasn't a regular risotto, but not in a bad way - it tasted great.

Carb-wise, it worked out at about 25g total for a moderate, restaurant-size portion. That's not bad - way better than a regular risotto - but given that I could quite easily, in certain moods, have wolfed down twice as much, it is a little high. Without the rice, it would have been about 16g for that same moderate portion. I'll try it that way next time - but I suspect that while it will still taste great, it might not hold together so well. We shall see.