Spicy Sausage Risotto
This is one of our go to recipes whilst out adventuring. There are a few core ingredients, and then you can add almost whatever fresh ingredients you can get your hands on. This meal is just as well suited to when it is cold and pouring with rain, as it is on a warm summer evening by the sea watching the sun go down.
Ingredients
We have found that you can play a little fast and loose with most of these ingredients. The staple parts are the rice and some sort of flavoursome fatty sausage. We have cooked this meal on almost all our big trips at some point or another. It is relatively easy to make, and incredibly comforting after a long day. As long as you can get a shelf-stable sausage variety and have a ready supply of water, then this meal is a good one in almost any situation.
Core ingredients
If you change these ingredients then we would probably call this a different dish. It is only a few base ingredients though:
Risotto rice - we have found arborio works well and is relatively easy to get hold of, however we have used other rice grains.
Spicy sausage - Something like chorizo. It is preferable if you can find some sort of shelf stable highly flavoured protein. Believe it or not, we have done this with hotdog sausages and added spices to give it a kick.
Stock cube - We have tired making this without stock and it does lose something. A stock cube does not take up too much space and is well worth the flavour.
Optional extras
Over the years we have experimented with adding many different ingredients, but these are the ones that we have found that work. We tend to chuck in as many vegetables as we can, as not only are they good for you, but it also makes the dish much nicer to eat from both a flavour and texture perspective.
Onion - Dehydrated, fresh, or even onion bits
Bell Pepper - Dehydrated , freeze dried, or fresh
Garden Peas - freeze dried, fresh, or even frozen!
White Wine - Non alcoholic or otherwise
Black Pepper - We tend to take ground black pepper as a staple.
Smoked Paprika - You only need less than a teaspoon for 4 people.
Chilli Flakes - As much or as little as you feel like.
Cooking Equipment
The only drawback we have found with this dish is the amount of fuel that it uses to cook the rice.
Stove - Some sort of controllable heat source, we have used our MSR Whisperlite, Trangia gas conversion, and even our fire box. It is possible to do using a trangia burner but it takes an age.
Ignition source - yep don't forget you are going to need to light your stove, yes we have somehow managed this in the past.
Pot or pan - A pot or pan large enough to put the amount of food that you are looking to cook. For the two of us we often use the largest of our Primus cookset pan or largest Trangia pan.
Stirring spoon - Even after all these years we still carry a wooden spoon.
Knife - It is always good to have a knife that is food safe with you on your adventures.
Cutting board - This may seem like an extravagance but they can be lighter and more useful than you think.
Method
Chop up the spicy sausage and any fresh vegetables into approximately 5mm cubes.
Pop your chopped up sausage into a pan with a splash of oil and heat gently. The idea is to render (melt) some of the fat out of the sausage.
If you have fresh onion, carrot or any harder vegetables, fry in the rendered sausage fat until soft. Keep the vegetables moving to stop them from sticking to the bottom of the pan.
Add rice to the pot and stir around. Try to get as much flavour from your sausage over the rice.
Add water to cover the rice and stir well.
Crumble your stock cube into the pot.
When the water has come up to the boil add any remaining vegetables to the pot.
Keep stirring and adding water until the rice is cooked to your liking. It is worth checking the instructions on the rice that you chose for a time estimate here, we have done this whole recipe in under 15 minutes with the right rice.
Eat while hot!
Trail Tips
As soon as you have finished cooking and serving, chuck water in the pot to stop the rice from drying out and sticking (you will thank yourself for doing that).
If you are cooking on an open fire, pop a pan of water on while cooking the rice so you can add hot water to the pot rather than cold. This reduces the overall cooking time.