Prawn, Artichoke and Lemon Baked Risotto

Once again, I turned to my new Donna Hay cookbook for tonight's inspiration. I have always been sceptical of baked risotto, but I thought I should give it a go before writing it off completely. I noticed that all Donna Hay risottos are baked, she explained it as "Why stir risotto for half an hour when you can just as easily bake it in the oven for the same result?" I totally get that, but wasn't sure whether you really would get the same result. I have officially been pleasantly surprised!

Ingredients

1 ½ cup arborio (or risotto) rice
4 ½ cups chicken stock
16 medium green (raw) prawns (shrimp), peeled with tails intact
1 cup finely grated parmesan
40g butter
sea salt and cracked black pepper
2 teaspoons finely grated lemon rind
4 store-bought marinated artichoke hearts, quartered
finely grated parmesan, extra, to serve

Preheat the oven to 180°C (355°F). Place the rice and stock in a 22 x 30cm (8½ x 12 in) 10-cup (80 fl oz) capacity baking dish and stir to combine. Cover tightly with foil and bake for 35 minutes. Add the prawns, cover and cook for a further 5 minutes or until most of the stock is absorbed and the rice is al dente. Add the parmesan, butter, salt, pepper, lemon rind and artichokes and stir until the butter is melted. Sprinkle with parmesan and serve immediately. Serves 4.

As with last night's recipe, I had to keep this in the oven for longer than the recipe stated, could just be my oven. I removed it from the oven after 35 minutes and thought it was going to be a disaster, there was still so much stock that I couldn't possibly put my prawns in at that time, I didn't want to ruin them! In it went again for another 15 minutes. Pullled it out and was feeling a lot more comfortable about adding my prawns, still, I couldn't see it being a creamy risotto. After 5 minutes the prawns were looking beautifully cooked, though I still thought I had too much stock. I added all the other ingredients and stirred through, finally, it was coming together! Amazingly, the stock that I thought I had too much of, suddenly disappeard and I had before me a very creamy risotto that was, as Spencer says, 'delicious'!

I served it with some creamed spinach, mainly because I had to use the spinach and we had Point Leo Road Chardonnay, from the Mornington Peninsula. Another hit on my hands!

This recipe can also be found on Donna Hay's website.