Recipe number 4

Oh man. Oh man oh man oh man. This was simply so divine. Best thing I’ve eaten in a long long time - and I’ve eaten a lot of things recently. I kid you not, I did that stereotypical mmm after the first bite, sighed “holy shit” and scoffed more down. I just wanted to eat it so much that I didn’t bother to clean the plate properly for the photo. My only regret is not making more of it.

This tasted exactly like my mum’s tomato soup with risotto rice in - maybe that’s why I liked it so much.

Forget what I said in the first post about that recipe being the epitome of “the whole is greater than the sum of its parts” - nah, this recipe is that. 6 total ingredients and fairly effortless cooking. I couldn’t be happier.

I had such low expectations as well. Last time I cooked risotto was in first year, two years ago, a red wine risotto that just tasted like wine, it was just meh. Last time I ate risotto was over the summer, a black seafood risotto in Croatia - that also wasn’t that great, but I was hungry. So you can understand why this surprised me so much.

Prep and cooking

I mean there really isn’t much to say here. The hardest thing in this recipe was halving the cherry tomatoes, and I mean that was a walk in the park compared to the other stuff I’ve done. Second hardest thing was turning the kettle on. Just to put things into perspective. The recipe has you pouring in hot stock a ladleful at a time, until it gets absorbed by the rice, then you add more. Repeat. I was on my last ladle of stock and the rice still hadn’t fully cooked and was still kind of raw. But in those final two minutes, something magic happened and the rice cooked and was just al dente. Pureeing the buttered tomatoes was a simple task really. And then mixing everything together to create perfection.

Taste

Like I said, this tastes like my mum’s tomato soup with risotto rice in. But y’all don’t know what that tastes like so I’ll describe it. A nice, thick, creamy, tomato soup with cheese melted in for that extra richness and creaminess you wouldn’t normally have. Slightly on the sweeter side, but not diabetically so. Imagine the best tomato soup you’ve ever had, now imagine better. That’s it.

Verdict

I am 100% remaking this very soon. The whole thing took 15 minutes and the result was just wow. I wish I could erase it from my brain, just so I can relive that first taste. That’s how good it was.

Ramsay doesn’t joke about with his serving sizes like most other recipes do - when he says it serves two, it does. None of this “serves 6” and you get 6 dilapidated portions which about feed a gnat.