How to make risotto – Easy!

I can give you 100 risotto recipes but this one is a very basic punkin & sage one – 100% vegetarian but your meat eating friends wont care, trust me!

To make risotto for 2, you will need:

200g arborio rice
3T butter
3-4c stock
2T oil (I use rice bran for all my plain cooking)
1c mashed pumpkin (Put 1 or 2T olive oil, a little salt and pepper in the pot when you cook / mash it – yum. If trying to keep it light, just use some stock or water)
1 white onion (finely diced)
1c dry white wine
100g parmesan cheese (grated, don’t use that dusty shite in a can or I will come haunt you!)
Sage (fresh) or parsley to garnish
1t salt
1t black pepper

Assuming you know how to cook and puree punkin – we will kick straight into it!

Method

Put 3T butter in a large pan, heat gently and add the onion, sweat it down (no colour wanted at this stage).

Add in the salt and pepper & then the rice, and cook for a cpl minutes, til you can see a change in the rice grains – it’s hard to explain but they change colour from chalky white to semi translucent – this is when you can proceed..

Ramp up the heat to medium / high. Pour in the white wine and stir as it absorbs all the liquid. Pour the chef a wine cos this next bit is tedious ..

Add 1/4 c stock to the rice and stir with a wooden spoon allowing the rice to absorb all the stock before adding any more. It happens quickly to start with then eventually, it is quite slow to drink in the stock but tis worth the effort!

Keep adding the stock in small (I use a soup ladle) amts – being sure to allow the rice time to soak it all in before adding any more.
Stir constantly at this stage (this is a good 15-20 minute job if not longer) but as I said: well worth it when you’re done.

Add the “flavouring”: in this case pureed pumpkin and stir it thru the risotto.

Add in the grated parmesan and some finely sliced parsley and sage.. (I have a parsley thing but this is optional if you don’t have any it wont matter)

At this point the risotto is ready ..

Without wanting to sound gross – the risotto almost looks like rice soup!

Serve in heated bowls, with a grating of parmesan cheese and a scattering of herbs. (Deep fried sage leaves – omg! Try them!) And finish with a drizzle of good quality olive oil..

Cos CJ likes it – this one has caramelised onions and red capsicum too!

If you wanna get experimental: 100g of risotto (arborio) rice to 2c stock is the theory. You can then add 1c of flavour ie mashed veges, broc, kumara, mushies – whatever ..
A dollop of mascarpone in risotto doesn’t go amiss, either .. you can kinda do anything you like so long as you do the stir / absorb thing ..

A personal fave of mine is smoked mushrooms..  heavenly!
My brother makes one with chicken & tomato ..

Have fun! 

*Can double etc the qtys easily. Any leftovers freeze beautifully for making arancini!