45 mins
Not Too Tricky
serves 2
About the recipe
When making a risotto, the important thing to remember is to take your time – give it some love, and add the liquid little and often – it’s all about massaging out the best of the flavours as it cooks. Use a heavy-bottomed, sturdy pan, with nice high sides, if you’ve got one – this will give you a good, even heat and stop the liquid from evaporating too quickly. All the veg in this recipe means that you get two of your 5-a-day, and the asparagus is high in folate, a nutrient your body needs to be able to think properly.
Ingredients
600ml organic vegetable stock, or 650ml if you’re not using wine
½ a bunch of fresh flat-leaf parsley (15g)
10g dried porcini mushrooms
1 clove of garlic
olive oil
400g mixed mushrooms
1 small onion
1 stick of celery
150g risotto rice
optional: 50ml white wine
200g asparagus
20g Italian hard cheese
1 lemon
Method
- Pour the stock into a medium pan on a low heat and simmer. Tear off the leafy part of the parsley and add the stalks to the pan.
- Place the porcini in a small bowl, just cover with boiling water, and leave to rehydrate.
- Peel and finely chop the garlic, then place in a medium pan on a medium heat with 1 tablespoon of oil and the mushrooms, tearing any larger ones, and a small pinch of sea salt and black pepper. Cook gently for a few minutes, or until softened, then remove to a plate.
- Peel and finely chop the onion, then trim and finely chop the celery. Return the pan to a medium-low heat with 1 teaspoon of oil, the onion, celery and a splash of water and cook for around 5 minutes, or until softened but not coloured, stirring occasionally. Scoop out, finely chop and add the porcini along with the soaking water, being careful to leave any gritty bits behind.
- Once the veg is soft, stir in the rice and fry for 1 minute, or until translucent, then pour in the wine (or 50ml of hot stock if you’re not using wine), stirring continuously until absorbed.
- Turn the heat up to medium and add a ladleful of hot stock (avoiding the parsley stalks). Keep stirring and adding stock, a ladle at a time, waiting for the rice to soak it all up before adding the next ladleful. Continue until you’ve added two-thirds of the stock.
- Snap off and discard the woody asparagus ends, cut off the tips and roughly chop the stalks, then add to the pan along with the cooked mushrooms, stirring to combine. Keep adding the remaining stock until the rice is just cooked and the risotto is nice and oozy – if you run out of stock, use boiling water.
- Remove from the heat and finely grate in most of the cheese. Season to taste with salt, pepper and a squeeze of lemon juice, then cover and leave to sit for 2 minutes.
- Divide the risotto between your plates, finely chop and scatter over the parsley leaves, and grate in the remaining cheese.
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