Almond-Fig Brown Rice Risotto

Since I used brown rice in this recipe, which takes a lot longer to cook, I was afraid of it being very under-cooked if I simply followed a traditional risotto technique. Therefore, I decided to precook it about half way in a rice cooker.

I started up my chicken bouillon with the rice and water in the rice cooker.

While that was going on, I sauteed my almonds in about 2 Tablespoons of butter in a cast-iron skillet, until they were nice and golden and aromatic.

I then added my diced onion, and continued sautéing until the onion was almost translucent, and at the tail end, dumped in my diced figs, and the white wine. When the figs were cooked just a tiny bit, I turned off the heat, and set aside this mixture in a separate bowl.

Once the rice approached a nearly cooked state, I added a little more butter to my skillet, and scooped in the parboiled rice filling up the bottom of the skillet. I cooked this on medium heat until it started to stick to the skillet, and then poured in the remaining bouillon water from my rice cooker about 1/2 cup at a time until it was absorbed. Since that didn’t seem to be enough liquid, I added about another 3/4 cup water into the skillet, and kept letting it absorb as the rice was cooking. Towards the end, I stirred in 1/2 cup cream, the fig-mixture, and about 1/4 cup grated cheese, and a dash of nutmeg.