Tomato risotto, baked in the oven with crispy red onions

Deb Perelman of Smitten Kitchen opens her latest recipe by grumbling about pumpkin spice and Halloween decor showing up in early September, when it is still hot out. Her answer is to hold on to summer tomatoes for as long as possible, and the result is a tomato risotto that looked appealing to me even though I only read it.

The idea came from her rice-stuffed tomatoes. She wanted just the rice filling as a standalone dish, so she grated about 2 pounds of ripe beefsteak tomatoes into pulp and built the risotto on that, with onion, garlic, and white wine. It cooks in water instead of broth, skips the constant stirring, and goes without heaps of butter and cheese.

The method is simple. She fries a sliced red onion in olive oil until deeply golden and crisp, sets half aside on paper towels, then cooks garlic in the pot with the rest, toasts 1 cup of arborio, carnaroli, or sushi rice, and deglazes with about a third of a cup of wine. The tomato pulp and roughly 2 cups of water go in, then the covered pot bakes at 350°F for 25 to 30 minutes. At the end she stirs it for a couple of minutes until creamy, adds butter or olive oil, and tops it with Parmesan, torn basil, and the reserved onions, which she calls a crisp alternative to bacon or prosciutto.

It serves four and takes about 50 minutes. Her notes say a food mill can replace the grater, and the recipe works as a vegan dish if you skip the butter and cheese. Baking instead of stirring is the part I find most appealing, since it frees up the cook during a busy evening.

Source: Smitten Kitchen