His Recipe:
2-3 Tbsp Olive Oil
1 cup Risotto Rice
2 cups Chicken or Vegetable Stock
3½ Tbsp Unsalted Butter
8 ounces Cherry Tomatoes, halved
⅓ cup Mascarpone Cheese
1 ounce parmesan Cheese, grated
Sea Salt and freshly Ground Pepper
Date(s) Made: February 4, 2026
My Notes and Comments: I have to admit that I had never eaten risotto (at least not to my knowledge) until after watching many cooking shows where the dish seemed to be a mainstay as an appetizer. Perhaps my reluctance was due to my not really liking a lot of rice. Anyway, I decided to try it, and I found it to be quite enjoyable, especially this recipe with the cherry tomatoes.
February 4, 2026
This is the second recipe that I prepared at the timeshare unit in Cabo San Lucas, Mexico. I am not complaining about being here; it is just the lack of proper cooking utensils that makes proper preparation a bit more challenging. I brought recipes that I was fairly sure I would find the ingredients for as well as be able to prepare with just a few utensils.
I found Arborio Rice, a great substitute for the Risotto Rice. I bought a box of chicken bullion cubes (I should have thought to bring them from home), using one cube in 2 cups of hot water to make a decent chicken stock. Finding Mascarpone Cheese was more of a challenge, and so I bought some Creme Fraiche although it is denser than the Mascarpone.
The cooking began with adding the rice to the oil in a medium-hot frying pan, stirring to coat the rice with the oil. Per Gordon’s note above, I then started adding the hot chicken stock a little at a time to control the absorbency into the rice. The cooking spoon I used was probably about half the size of a decent ladle so I wasn’t actually getting enough in each time. That caused the process to take a little longer than expected.
In another warm pan I melted the butter and added the Cherry Tomatoes, cooking them until the butter/juice mixture became a nice nutty brown color. Once the rice had the desired consistency, I added the cheeses and the tomatoes/butter, stirring to blend everything together. The creme fraiche didn’t melt quickly, so more stirring over a low heat was necessary.
To serve, I put the mixture into two dinner bowls, added some halved tomatoes and a sprig of cilantro. The dish was very tasty, although a bit too much. But that was fine as we knew we could have it in the morning fried with some butter and a couple eggs for a nice egg-fried rice dish.
Some photos:
Some Videos (sound on, please):
(I experienced “server issues” as I was uploading the videos here at the timeshare; I will upload them later — please check back.)
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