Orzo Stew Recipes — Step-by-Step Guide & Transcript

[00:00] Ok so if you want a quick, cheap, one-pan,  EASY, super-hearty meal, the base starch that   you are looking for is not rice or pasta.  Well, technically it is pasta. It's orzo,  

[00:13] which is a traditional little pasta shaped  to look like grains of barley — orzo means   barley in Italian, though I gather most  Italians call it risoni, or big rice. I think of orzo, I think of soups and salads,  but it's instant stew waiting to happen,  

[00:30] like risotto, and much quicker and  easier than risotto. I'ma do three   quick stews, and for the first one I promised  myself I wouldn't select any ingredients. I'll   just open up the fridge and work with  whatever is there — ah, diced pancetta.

[00:45] Any form of onion will do and here's an onion. We  can start with this. The pancetta is looking old,   so let's use it now or never. In a cold pan.  You turn the heat on, let it heat up slowly,   it'll melt more fat to cook the onion in. I  reckon I'll need half of this, chop it up however.

[01:02] Pancetta looks good — I just want to see  it starting to go crispy before I add   all these wet vegetables and things.  Plenty of fat for cooking the onion,   so in it goes. Give it a five minute  head start to soften and brown a little.

[01:15] I went looking in the pantry and found an  old can of sweet corn one of us bought at   some point. Sure. The kernels are  packed in water. Drain that out. Ok, onion looks good, time to drop in the orzo.  I'll do one cup of it, which is upwards of 200g  

[01:31] depending on the size of the grains. Drop that  in there and stir it around. I don't know if   frying the grains a little improves the flavor the  way it does with risotto rice but it can't hurt. We'll need at least twice as much liquid  as orzo by volume and I already have 3/4  

[01:47] of corn juice over here, might as well  use that, it's sweet and starchy. Then   I'll get enough water to give me two  cups total liquid, 2:1 by volume. Now we just boil. Orzo will take  5 to 10 minutes to get soft,  

[02:01] depending on the brand. When I see  them getting plump I'll drop in my   corn. This is a lot of corn, this will  be a very vegetal stew and that is good. Let me taste this a little. That corn was  NOT very salty, which means I can drop in  

[02:15] a stock cube I've got in the cupboard,  maybe half of this — very salty. Can   already tell I'm gonna need more liquid for  a stew-like texture — 2:1 is only a baseline. The orzo is soft, so I'll drop in some frozen peas  at the very end to keep them green. Let's balance  

[02:32] all that sweet with some heat from these pepper  flakes, and some black pepper too. Taste for salt,   and if it's good, you can finish with some  butter or something just to make it extra creamy. Look at that — an impromptu assemblage of  pantry ingredients yields a filling and  

[02:47] nutritious meal in literally less than 15  minutes. What do we have, at least two big   portions? The texture is much more silky than  risotto without having to nail the cook time,   like you do with rice. This little pasta  is very forgiving, even if you overcook it.

[03:03] Orzo offers an ease of use on par with a  mattress from Helix, sponsor of this video.   Get excited for their Labor Day Sale — up to  30% off select mattresses with my link. I've  

[03:16] really been focusing on sleep and mental health  and stuff lately, finding the right medicines,   I've improved my sleep so much, and my many  Helix mattresses have been a big part of that. We go on the website and take the quiz,  tell them how we sleep, how we are sized  

[03:31] and shaped as humans and they recommend the  perfect match. There's mattresses for kids,   for big and tall people, soft sleepers, firm  sleepers, or the perfect compromise in between,   which is what we get. I like to sink  into this hybrid spring and foam number,  

[03:46] but it's bouncy enough for  Lauren — my wife, not the dog. The mattress ships free in the U.S.,  rolled up in a box. And there's the   Happy with Helix Guarantee — if it's  not the right mattress for your body,  

[03:58] there's seamless returns and  exchanges, and a 120-night trial. Right now, get that Labor Day  sale: helixsleep.com/ragusea   for 30% off select mattresses or  scan the QR code. Thank you. Helix.

[04:12] Anyway let's do another orzo stew. These ones I  did shop for a little. I've got a couple chicken   thighs here, I'm just snipping them into the  olive oil with scissors because I don't really   care how the chunks are shaped and this way I  don't have to scrub chicken off a cutting board.

[04:28] and brown the first sides. WAIT until they're  ready to release. Are they ready? Yeah,   good enough. Scrape those off and  stir fry them the rest of the way.

[04:40] While I'm waiting, I'll slice up some mushrooms.  Throw those in when the chicken looks almost   done. They'll probably need some more oil to  cook — porous little guys. Stir stir stir,   try to work the mushrooms to the bottom  of the pan in an even layer to brown.

[04:55] Peel a couple cloves of garlic.  I've got a shallot here too.   then I'll just roughly chop those two together.  We're not being fancy today, we're being quick.

[05:07] In with the garlic and shallots, stir and  they'll just need a minute to soften. In   goes a cup of this other brand of orzo,  this one was my favorite, #notanad. Stir, then because I'm cooking on an  open flame, I will kill the gas while  

[05:21] I deglaze with a little cognac, don't  want it to ignite. Basically any brown   liquor is great with mushrooms. Heat  back on now that the bottle is away. I'll get some good cartoned chicken broth,  this looks to be a two cup package so I'll  

[05:35] put all that in. Again, you need at LEAST  2:1 liquid by volume. Bring that to a boil.   I'll run outside and pick some rosemary,  chop that up. Mushrooms and rosemary are a   combination forged on Mount Olympus, I swear.

[05:51] we're waiting, and you don't need to stir  at all for the first half of the boiling,   but for the second half you may need to  stir constantly, to keep it from sticking   to the bottom, just like with risotto. In fact,  I think that's where the whole idea of stirring  

[06:05] risotto constantly probably came from, even though  stirring does not improve the texture, according   to my experiments. It just keeps stuff from  sticking to the bottom as the stew gets thicker. Taste — gonna need more water to get this soft  enough, and not 10 minutes later the grains are  

[06:21] soft enough, kill the heat. Again, it's not  like risotto where the grains are perfect for   one flashing moment and then they're overcooked.  Orzo is much more forgiving, as is chicken thigh,   which is why I used it here. You can overcook  the thigh and it just gets better. Bullet proof.

[06:38] Rosemary in, and I'll enrich this one  with some grated pecorino. I could add   some butter too but I've got plenty of olive  oil in there already, plus the chicken fat. THAT is my favorite one of these that  I made. SO hearty. Maybe not quite two  

[06:51] portions this time — you could bulk  it out with frozen peas at the end,   or do more chicken. Hey, who’s stealing  my dinner? You don't even like mushrooms! maybe just stir in a little extra water when  you microwave it, to compensate for absorption.

[07:08] this time. Everything straight into  the pan. A little butter. I've got   a fresh red chili I can just snip  in there. I love kitchen scissors. of green onions. I will snip  off the roots over the trash,  

[07:26] and then come back over here and snip in  the whites. The greens I'll save for later. Stir stir stir, just needs a second. Get a  cup of orzo and this is a finer-grained brand,   frying the dry grains a little does help them to  not stick to each other once the liquid goes in.

[07:45] Gonna cheat and grab one of these frozen  balls of pre-minced garlic — love these,   vastly superior to jarlic because the  volatile compounds are stable in the freezer. Gonna deglaze with a little  white wine, like a risotto,  

[07:58] and then a couple cups of water. If I had  shellfish broth that would be perfect. Here's a whole head of baby bok choy. Cut  off the root end to release the leaves,   and I just washed this, but uh oh — lots of dirt  between the layers. I'll just rinse these under  

[08:12] the sink ... and drop them in, easy. Take out  more of that root end and these layers are dirty   inside too, I'll run them under the sink, and in  they go. Then there's just the little immature   flower at the center, that's my favorite part.  Like broccoli, because they're both brassicas.

[08:28] Stir to get those cooking. Grind in some  pepper while I'm here. Pinch of salt to   start with. And we'll need to stir  these pretty frequently as we boil,   just to make sure the thick ends are  getting down where they can cook and soften.

[08:41] And when the orzo is just a couple minutes from  being soft, almost within striking distance,   I'll drop in half a pound of pre-peeled raw shrimp  from the fish counter. Feeling lazy today. Though,   I put these in too soon. I thought this  tiny orzo would cook faster than it did.

[08:57] so drop them in when the thing is just about done. because I have some open cream in the  fridge. Don't need much to make this creamy.

[09:11] This orzo is dragging, I need more liquid,  so I guess I'll get more wine. I do like to   and there's plenty of starch in the pan  to keep the acid from curdling the cream.

[09:23] When we're done I'll snip in some of  these onion greens at the last second,   and because I have one, I'll zest in a lemon.  Lemon zest with creamy seafood is amazing,   and you can still juice the lemon later,  it just doesn't last quite as long now.

[09:40] Yeah, we've got at least two big  portions from this one for sure,   nice. So creamy, so silky, so bright  and vegetal. Almost anything can be a   quick orzo stew. Look around the house  — a shoe, a cat — throw it in the pan,  

[09:55] liquid and orzo at about a 2:1 ratio, and  dinner will happen almost spontaneously.