Elton John is celebrating his 77th birthday today, and hopefully enjoying the day with his favourite meal.
It is widely known that Elton John loves risotto, so much so that he even sent his personal chef to Italy to take cooking lessons from Chef Luciano Parolari, also known as the ‘King of Riscotto.’
In the cookbook ‘Tales of Risotto’, it states that the Rocket Man singer first tried the chef’s famous ‘risotto con pesce persico (risotto with perch fillets) at a dinner party and he instantly became “enamoured” by the dish.
However, you do not have to be a master chef to try out this recipe for yourself, as Paola Lovisetti Scamihorn, a cook and founder of Passion and Cooking, has shared her own method for making Elton’s “beloved” dish.
She said: “Risotto with perch fish is a speciality of my beloved lake, Lake Como. It is one of my favourite local recipes – a tasty dish prepared with basic risotto and sautéed local freshwater perch, flavoured with butter and sage.”
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Instruction
To begin, pour the vegetable stock into a saucepan and warm it up on a medium heat.
In another saucepan, heat 50g of the butter and add the shallot, then cook for two mediums over a medium heat, then add the rice.
Stir the rice thoroughly for around three minutes to coat it in the butter and shallot, then add the wine. Keep stirring until the wine is fully absorbed on a medium-high heat.
Add a soup ladle or two worth of the heated vegetable stock to the rice until fully covered, and then continue to stir until most of the stock has been aborded, then repeat the process.
While the risotto is cooking, wash the perch fillets and then pat dry with paper towels. Coat the fillets in flour then cook in a pan and cook over medium-high heat until the butter has melted, then decrease the heat to medium.
Cook the fish fillets until they are golden brown on each side, season them with salt, and then remove them from the pan and keep warm.
Remove the risotto saucepan from the heat once it is ready after roughly 15 minutes and is creamy and tender. Add 30g of the butter and keep stirring to let it blend into the risotto.
Season the salt and pepper to taste, then let it rest for two minutes before serving.
Place 50g of butter and the chopped sage leaves in a pan and cook on a medium heat for two minutes until melted, but be careful not to brown the butter.
Turn the risotto out onto a heated platter, arrange the perch fillets on top and then pour over the sage butter. Your tasty dish is now ready to serve.
