Yeeeaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaah, i still love risotto… as i just said in the post before with the bloody rice…  and (unfordtunately) im still smoking… not that much and more food than cigarettes :)))

Lets see tonight’s dinner…

Perfect risotto with home smoked mackerel, sweet green peas and crunchy apples with a hint of lemon thyme. Why? I miss meat a bit and the good seasoned smoky blue fish pretty close to umami. Why? Cause we all love fresh sugary tiny green peas. Why? Cause the best friend of mackerel is the apple (or gooseberry which unfortunately u cant find here) creating a sweet balanced harmony. U need another reason? Just try it and feel it.

The leader flavour belongs to the smoking spices – believe it or not. I use cinnanom, star anise, cardamom and juniper berries (i know that i should use smoking chips which is million times cheaper, but what can i do if i have these lovelies are always in my hand while i do need to order the wood online??? footnote: and like this u create much more beautiful aroma)- Back to the story… so I smoked the fish first – washed the pan roughly and used again to cook the risotto. The flavour was still there dancing all around the base like a ballerina…

clean your fish and put the fillets in your ‘smoking pot’ (try to put skin side up otherwise the best looking part of this fish will stick to the paper)

cover your pot precisely and start to heat up slowly…slowly… slowly smoke is gonna escape out 

be careful – dont oversmoke your fish! otherwise u will ended up paper-dry flakes (10-15 minutes usually enough, if u have the freshest fish ever its better when still raw in the middle)

Voilá, your real home smoked mackerel has been done, congratulation! After this your job is easy. The very simple thing u can do: mackerel paté (smoked fish, mayo, lemon juice, horseradish, parsley and salt/pepper) on a top of a crunchy toast. Really good bite – my only problem is with this stuff: its sooo good, u hardly can stop eating and even if u can, the flavour keeps running up side down in your mouth for hours and hours.

Anyway, so i made my georgeous risotto. First just a normal base (i lift it up with the eathiness of my spinach soup) and at the end, when its still crunchy a bit add your flaky fish, your apples and peas with a massive amount of parmezan. Cover, turn off the heat and wait. Needs about 10 minutes to finish the cooking proccess alone. Hmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm… hard to find words. If u smell and taste a real risotto once: u easily become obsessed.

footnote: cigi rizi bizi?

cigi: means cigarette obviously refers to the smoking procedure

rizi bizi: called a pretty “old’s’cool” type of plain rice mixed with some green peas, good old memories from our childhood