Wild Mushroom Risotto

Wild mushroom risotto is the best!! Jen love’s it too, and there isn’t any chilli!!

Many people are a little daunted by making a risotto but, in truth, the only complicated thing is that you need to constantly stir it. It’s what I call an active dish compared to something like a casserole which is a passive dish. Chuck all the ingredients together and bang in the oven for 5 hours. Not the wild mushroom risotto.

The other great thing about a wild mushroom risotto is that it doesn’t have to be wild mushroom based. Risotto as a dish is so versatile and those mushrooms can be exchanged for many other ingredients. Try chicken and butternut squash, chicken and ham, or even simple curly kale. Anything can be added depending on what you have in your kitchen or what is taking your fancy today.

The only other point to note before we get cooking is the rice. You have to use risotto rice which can be one of various varieties, for example, Arborio, Carnaroli, Vialone, Nano, and Baldo. Before you start panicking, however, just make this simple and go and buy Gran Gallo Risotto rice from either this link or your local supermarket. It’s very good and what I use for any risotto.

OK, now for the cooking. As usual, the printable recipe and method is detailed below but as a simple, and entertaining walk through follow me down…

1. Get the ingredients ready

Right Yum Yummers, you should know my routine by now. Get all the prep done before you start cooking. This is particularly important when making a risotto. As I said above, you have to be on this dish all the time and keep stirring and make sure the rice doesn’t run dry. If it does, you will have one burnt wild mushroom risotto which is not even good enough for the dog!! ????

Preparing the ingredients here is simple because there isn’t that many. Depending on which wild mushrooms you can get hold, porcini, shiitake, oyster etc. etc. off slice them a little. But keep them a really good size. You want the taste and texture. You can also use dried mushrooms if you like. See the top tips below.

Now just finely chop the shallots, garlic, and parsley. Grate the Parmesan ready for the final dish and also make the stock. I actually used chicken stock in this recipe only because I had run out of vegetable stock. Use either depending on your preference. In some stores, you can also buy mushroom stock cubes and they work very well for this wild mushroom risotto.

2. Make the risotto

As I’ve already mentioned above, this is an active dish so be ready for around 30 minutes of not leaving the kitchen. The good thing is that a wild mushroom risotto, in fact, any risotto for that matter, requires some white wine. I recommend, therefore, that you try some of the wine when you are cooking, just to make sure it’s ok…????????

Right then, first of all, take a reasonably sized saucepan and add the oil over a medium heat. Then add the butter. Once the butter has melted turn the heat down and sweat the shallots off. Use the lid of the pan for this and, in effect, steam the shallots. You do not want these to fry and go dark. There are for flavour and should remain soft and translucent. Now add the mushrooms and fry off for 2-3 minutes.

Now add the rice and stir well until all of the rice is coated with the oil and the juices of the mushroom and shallots. Now add the wine and keep stirring until all of the wine has almost all evaporated away. If you didn’t know this is called reducing the wine, or a wine reduction. Remember though, do not let the pan run dry.

Next, add a ladle full of stock to the saucepan and reduce the liquid down by 3/4. Again, don’t let the pan run dry.

Keep adding a ladle of stock and reduce until all of the stock has been added. The pot will appear to be growing in size even though you are reducing the liquid. Don’t be concerned about this. This is the rice absorbing the lovely liquid.

Once you have reduced most of the stock and the dish looks creamy in texture taste the rice and make sure it’s quite soft, but not mushy. You still want the rice to have some “chew” to its texture. Then add some Maldons seas salt and ground black pepper to taste. Once you’re happy with the seasoning add half of the chopped parsley and stir in.

The wild mushroom risotto is now, in effect, complete and ready for serving.

3. Serve the wild mushroom risotto

Simply ladle the risotto into bowls and sprinkle the Parmesan and remaining chopped parsley evenly over the servings. Large dishes for the main course and smaller dishes if serving as an initial appetiser.

There you go. Simple wild mushroom risotto ready to eat. Yum Yum!

4. A word about the wine

Obviously, the wine used in this dish can be any white wine and you certainly don’t want to use your best stuff for cooking. Having said that, don’t throw it away. Either share it while you go through the cooking experience or have it with the meal. However, if you do want to push the boat out try something with a bit of body. We had a nice Domaine Gerard Thomas St Aubin from Waitrose and I would strongly recommend this.

5. Top Tips

a) Dried wild mushrooms

Sometimes it’s difficult to get good all the fresh wild mushrooms you want, and foraging in the woods is not recommended unless you really know what you are looking for. You don’t want some nasty toadstool right? Another option, therefore, is to use dried wild mushrooms, for example, porcini. Just soak them in a little water for 20 minutes and then add them when you stir in the parsley. Add the water to the wild mushroom risotto though as it has a great deal of flavour!

 

OK my food lover friends, that’s it for this time. I hope you enjoyed this lovely wild mushroom risotto and try it yourselves. As always, any feedback or questions you may have are always welcome. Just use the comments section below.

Enjoy and until next time…Steve.