My Mushroom Risotto

Mushroom Risotto served with parmesan and extra virgin olive oil

My first blog post! Very exciting

I love a good risotto. I have trawled through various cookbooks and online recipes to get the perfect recipe and came up with this one that I quite like, however it is quite rich so you don’t need huge portions. It is inspired by recipes in Nigella’s How to Eat and Jamie’s 30 Minute Meals. The trick to make it easy is to get everything prepared while the mushrooms are soaking. I like to serve with good white crusty bread.

Serves 2 generously or more as a starter.

Ingredients:

20 g dried porcini mushrooms (or 100g fresh mushrooms thinly sliced)
1 tbsp olive oil
Knob of butter
1 large white onion
1 stick celery
2 cloves garlic
175g arborio or carnaroli rice
Dried thyme
75ml white wine
Hot chicken/veg stock (I rarely make fresh stock so I use Knorr stock pots dissolved in about 500 mls of boiling water)
30g freshly grated parmesan
Knob of butter
Salt & Pepper

Method:

Put the dried porcini mushrooms into a large mug of boiling water and allow to soak for 20 mins.

VERY finely slice & dice the celery, onion and garlic.

Heat the oil and butter in a heavy bottomed saucepan. Add the onions & celery and stir regularly until soft. When they have started to soften add the garlic.

Drain the mushrooms but keep the water. Finely chop the mushrooms, add to the onions etc and add a sprinkling of thyme. Season lightly with salt and pepper at this stage.

Add the rice and stir in the veg until well mixed and the grains are covered with oil.

Add the white wine and cook off until it is nearly all gone.

Add ladle of the mushroom water and stir rice until all absorbed.

Repeat with the mushroom water and then the hot stock until all liquids have been absorbed and the rice has a slight bite to it. You may not have to use all the stock.

When you are ready to serve, stir in the grated parmesan to add a slight creaminess to the risotto. Season with freshly ground black pepper to taste. You may not need to add more salt because of the parmesan. You could also stir in a small knob of butter to make it glossy.