Refuel with rice

Try these two rice-based dishes to help your body recover and repair after exercise

Food writer and chef Fi Buchanan and cyclist and illustrator Kitty PembertonPlatt have collaborated to bring Pemberton-Platt’s illustrated food diaries of real female cyclists to life. Here are two tasty recipes from their book

Eat Bike Cook that would make perfect post-ride fuel.

MUSHROOM RISOTTO (GF)

Risotto is easy to conjure out of a store cupboard with very little in it. Why not try a ‘spring’ variation (below) too? See below for how to part-pre-cook in advance. Prep 10mins

Cook 25mins (10mins if you partially pre-cook it in advance) Serves 3

Ingredients

• 6 tbsp olive oil

• 250g shallots, finely chopped • 1 garlic clove, finely chopped • 250g Arborio rice

• 250ml dry white wine

• 900ml vegetarian stock

• 50g butter

• 200g mushrooms, sliced • Sea salt

• 1 tbsp fresh lemon juice

• A handful of flat leaf parsley, roughly chopped

• Salt and freshly ground black pepper

• 50g Parmesan, freshly grated (optional)

METHOD

1 Add the olive oil to a heavybased sauté pan and warm over a medium heat. Add the shallots and garlic and cook until the shallots are soft and beginning to turn golden. Add the rice and stir around in the pan so that each grain is coated with the shallot-scented oil.

2 Turn up the heat slightly and add the white wine to the pan. Let it come to quite a vigorous simmer, stirring from time to time, and cook until the wine has almost disappeared. Then, turning down the heat a wee bit, add a third of the stock and keep stirring until it’s almost completely absorbed. Add the rest of the stock 300ml at a time until it’s all been absorbed and the rice is becoming tender and creamy. (This should take about 20 minutes.)

3 While the risotto is simmering, cook your mushrooms. Add half of the butter to a large frying pan on a medium heat and sauté until they are softened and brown, about 5–7 minutes. Finish with a pinch of salt and the lemon juice, then set aside.

4 After about 20 minutes, test the rice – it should be tender but not mushy. Quickly stir the rest of the butter into the risotto, then fold in the mushrooms and the parsley. Taste and season to your liking. Serve, topped with the grated Parmesan, if using.

VARIATION

Spring risotto Omit the mushrooms and instead fry 100g baby asparagus in olive oil seasoned with ½ tsp salt and a squeeze of lemon juice and add to the risotto along with 75g frozen or fresh petit pois and 75g washed, stemmed baby spinach when you would have added the mushrooms. Swap in some mint instead of the parsley and replace the Parmesan with crème fraîche.

NUTRITIONAL ANALYSIS

Per serving 726 Kcals

• 37g fat • 12g saturates • 71g carbs • 3.5g sugars • 3.5g fibre • 9g protein • 1.7g salt

Pre-prep the risotto

Take the pan off the heat after the second addition of stock and pour the risotto into a wide, flat baking dish to cool. Refrigerate for up to two days. To finish cooking, heat the remaining stock, put the risotto into a heavy-based pan, add the hot stock and cook over a low heat, stirring occasionally, until the stock is absorbed and the risotto is at a steady simmer. Prep the mushrooms and revert to the recipe.

“Risotto is easy to conjure out of a store cupboard with very little in it”