Mushroom risotto
Apologies to the person who asked for non-mushroom recipes recently, I promise there will be more fungi-less dishes coming up over the next few days! I wanted to share this as I love mushroom risotto and it’s a pretty straightforward recipe that you can knock together on any day of the week.
Also it’s surprisingly a dish that I can get my kids to eat without too much complaint. Admittedly they carefully pick out every mushroom, but even if they don’t eat them they’re used to the look and taste which I think is still quite important. They haven’t got used to the texture yet, but hopefully that will come.
I added some carrots and broccoli to their plates so at least they ate some veggies and we had a green salad. A good tip for getting your kids to eat things they don’t like much is to serve with (garlic or buttered fresh) bread. I find that mine will then revoltingly pile the thing they don’t love onto the bread and eat it that way!
Ingredients
Serves 4
300g chestnut mushrooms, sliced roughly
Approx 1-2 tbsp olive oil
10g porcini mushrooms
40g unsalted butter
1 onion, chopped finely
1 stick celery, chopped finely
1 clove garlic, grated
150ml white wine or 100ml sherry or vermouth
300g risotto rice
700ml vegetable stock
50g parmesan, finely grated
3/4 tsp sea salt
Squeeze of 1/4 lemon
Handful of chopped parsley, optional
Method
Warm ½ tbsp olive oil in a frying pan and cook the mushrooms on a medium heat in batches. Set aside each batch in a bowl once browned.
While the mushrooms are cooking, boil a cup of water in the kettle, pour 50ml on to the porcini in a small bowl leaving them to soak while you get the risotto started.
Warm the stock on the hob or microwave.
Heat 30g of butter and a decent glug of olive oil in a wide low-sided pan, add the onions and celery, cooking gently for 15 minutes until soft, but not browned.
Next add the rice, stirring well, after about a minute it should look slightly translucent at the edges.
Then turn up the heat and pour in the wine or Sherry. Allow the harsh alcohol taste to bubble off and once the rice has absorbed the rest of the wine start adding the warm stock. I usually pour in about a ladle or 100ml at a time.
After the first ladle, roughly chop the porcini mushrooms with a pair of scissors in the bowl and pour into the rice.
Deglaze the mushroom frying pan with a little stock and add it to the rice, so you don’t waste that extra flavour. Then keep adding the stock slowly, each time it absorbed pour another ladle into the pan, stirring regularly.
After 10 minutes add the cooked mushrooms and continue pouring in the stock for another 8 minutes.
Check the rice is cooked (it should still have a little bite to it) and then stir in 10g of butter, 30g parmesan, salt, a squeeze of lemon and parsley if you’re using it.
Serve with the rest of the parmesan, warm ciabatta and a green salad.
Tip
A note about stock - if I’m using a cube then I will double the amount of water recommended on the pack, so for this recipe I just used one cube for one litre of water. Otherwise you’ll end up tasting the stock cube rather than it being a savoury back note.
I don’t always want to open a bottle of wine just for cooking, so I keep a bottle of sherry or Vermouth in the cupboard to use for risotto. It doesn’t go off like wine, so you can just use a glass as and when you need it.
To make the risotto vegan, you could use non-dairy ‘butter’ and add a tablespoon of nutritional yeast and or a little oat cream instead of cheese. Top with pine nuts or pumpkin seeds.
I use a Microplane or fine grater for the cheese and garlic.