Chez Starz

We recently took a trip to Italy and had the pleasure of spending a couple of days in a town called Città della Pieve, known for its saffron. My BF put together this delicious rice dish with what we had on hand at the cottage. Luckily, we had bought some local saffron, which added a lot of flavor to this Italian-style fried rice fusion.

Ingredients:

2 cups cooked rice, cooled

Saffron

1/4 cup extra-virgin olive oil

1 red bell pepper, 1/2 diced somewhat fine and the other half larger dice

2 eggs, beaten

2-3 TBS butter

Parmigiano Reggiano to taste

Salt and pepper to taste

Burrata cheese

First, place a few stalks of saffron in the olive oil and let it infuse; the longer, the better the flavor.

Pre-cook the rice to yield 2 cups, then let cool.

Heat saffron-infused olive oil and add 1/2 of the red bell pepper (the smaller diced half). Cook until the bell pepper softens, then add salt and pepper to taste. Add the rice and stir well, adding more olive oil as needed to keep it from drying out.

Create a hole in the rice, add the eggs, scramble, and stir them in.

Add half of the larger diced bell pepper, along with the butter and grated Parmigiano.

Once off the heat, add the burrata cheese.

Godere!