Cool Plates features dishes from across the country to help inspire chefs' creativity.
Mezze executive chef and partner Micah Wexler uses the typical ingredients of hashweh — a Lebanese rice pilaf made with burnt onions, spices, lamb and almonds or pine nuts — to make risotto.
He starts by making a typical risotto with Carnaroli rice, rather than Arborio, and finishes the dish with the hashweh ingredients.
Those include finely diced onions that he fries in vegetable oil in a “ripping hot” wide-bottom pan to quickly bring out the sugars and char them a bit. He also adds a baharat spice blend of black pepper, coriander, cinnamon, nutmeg, allspice, clove and a little salt. Those ingredients, along with cooked ground lamb, the yogurt cheese labneh, butter and a squeeze of lemon juice all are added to the risotto at the last minute.
He plates the dish and tops it with a small salad of toasted almonds, parsley and lemon zest mixed with a little olive oil and sea salt.
Finally, he tops that off with fried lemons, made by thinly slicing the citrus, dusting the slices in instant flour and flash frying them.
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