Risotto Cakes

This blog is meant to follow my post from yesterday: Mushroom Risotto. You can put this together using any leftover risotto. It would work best if there aren't pieces of vegetable in the risotto, but overall using the mushroom risotto was pretty successful. This helped me take the leftovers from our date night and turn them into an easy to make week night dinner.

The recipe comes from the blog of a friend from college. Check out her page, she puts together some really great recipes.

Recipe from Whatever Pieces.

Ingredients:
Risotto Cakes

-1 1/2 to 2 cups leftover risotto

-1 egg

-1 tbsp olive oil + 1 tbsp canola oil (or any combination of fats)

-2 eggs, poached and kept warm, optional

-Salad greens, optional

-Balsamic vinaigrette, optional (recipe follows)

Balsamic Vinaigrette

-3 tbsp extra virgin olive oil

-2 tbsp balsamic vinegar

-2 tsp Dijon mustard

-1 tsp honey

-1 tbsp chopped fresh basil or 1 tsp dried

-Salt and pepper, to taste

Mix together the ingredients for the vinaigrette and dress the salad. It's optional, but I recommend it. The salad helped to give this some fresh elements and the vinaigrette was good served with the risotto cakes. Make your poached eggs (or sunny side up) and set aside.

Mix the egg and risotto in a mixing bowl.

Heat oil in a large skillet and portion out 1/3-1/2 a cup of the risotto mixture. Be patient! These will take several minutes to cook on the bottom. If you flip the cakes too soon they will be crumbly. You should be able to slide the entire cake around the pan before flipping it -- that means the bottom is crisp.

Serve the poached eggs over the risotto cakes, season the eggs with salt and pepper. Toss the salad greens in the vinaigrette.

Dave and I loved this dinner. Turning the risotto into cakes took a creamy rice dish and made it slightly crunchy. The egg yolk from the poached egg gave this dish a richness. If you enjoy the risotto cake with some of the vinaigrette it will give it a nice acidic element and a new flavor. This was great use for the leftovers and turned the dish from the night before into something totally new. This will be my new way to enjoy risotto leftovers.