Mushroom Risotto

Exotic Mushrooms

shimeji

Shiitake
Enokitake

I had this risotto planned for a while, and whena fellow North East Blogger - Mince and Skirlie wrote about his recipe, I decided it was time to give it a try. I would have normally used just plain white mushrooms mixed with chestnut mushrooms, but when I saw that Sainsburys had an exotic mushroom pack it sealed the deal. The only problem being, the pack didn't tell me what they were. I think through using google I have identified them but I could be totally wrong, if anyone knows and I need corrected feel free to do so!

Recipe - served 2 - and the portions were pretty big and filling.

2 small onions finely chopped

150g risotto rice

3 small knobs of butter

olive oil

white wine

vegetable stock - but chicken would work

Parmesan

parsley

mixed mushrooms - your choice

I started by frying the onion in butter and oil, then adding the risotto rice, the skill being to coat the rice and to cook a little before adding any liquid - toasting the rice. I then splashed in a good glass of wine, maybe more but who is counting? I let this cook till it had boiled dry or there abouts, giving it a stir now and then.

Then it was time to get down to the main event, adding the stock which I had in another pan at a slow boil, ladle at a time, stirring until it had all been absorbed before adding another ladle.

The experts reckon a proper risotto takes 18 minutes to make, I didn't time it, so I couldn't tell you.

Will this was going on I fried the mushrooms in a separate pan with butter and oil, I suppose I could have added them in with the risotto at the beginning but I thought they might break up and I really want to keep the lovely different shapes of them all.

Once I had added all the vegetable stock to the rice mixture, and the rice was cooked but still had bite - al dente - like pasta; I took it off the heat, added another knob of butter some Parmesan cheese and gave it a good stir - this stage is called Mantecatura.

When I dished it up, I simply served the mushrooms on top with a sprinkle of parsley and more Parmesan. The parsley made a big impact. Delicious, well I thought so - Richard didn't like the exotic mushrooms. You win some, you lose some!