30 mins
Super easy
serves 4
About the recipe
A classic Italian dish that's hard to beat. The risotto combo of pea, ham and cheese is an Italian classic – and super easy to whip up.
Ingredients
1 litre organic chicken or vegetable stock
½ an onion
100g higher-welfare streaky bacon
25g unsalted butter
1 bunch of fresh thyme (30g)
400g risotto rice
150ml white wine
200g frozen peas
100g crumbly goat's cheese
75g Parmesan cheese
Top Tip
To make a vegetarian risotto, leave out the bacon, swap in a vegetarian hard cheese and use vegetable stock.
Method
- Heat the stock in a saucepan. Peel and finely chop the onion and slice the bacon into matchsticks.
- In a separate pan, heat the butter, add the onion and bacon. Strip in the thyme leaves and fry for about 8 minutes until the onion is soft but not coloured. Add the rice and turn up the heat so it almost fries.
- After a minute the rice will look slightly translucent. Add the wine and keep stirring.
- Now add a ladle of hot stock and a pinch of sea salt. Turn down the heat to a fairly high simmer. Keep adding ladlefuls of stock, stirring constantly and allowing each ladleful to be absorbed completely before adding the next.
- Chuck the peas into the stock when there are a couple of ladlefuls left, and add them with the stock. Stir until the rice is soft but still has a slight bite, then season with salt and black pepper.
- Remove from the heat and stir in half the goat's cheese and finely grate over the Parmesan. Sprinkle the remaining goat's cheese over the top and eat as soon as possible while it retains its lovely moist texture.
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