Yet another risotto, this time with mushrooms

All of the yummy risotto recipes on this blog over the last few weeks made me dig out my own go to risotto recipe, which is for Wild Mushroom Risotto.  This is an old Delia recipe that I ignored for years, but rediscovered a few months and have been cooking a lot since. I should add the caveat that this is kind of a cheats risotto as it is done in the oven rather than spending a lot of time adding liquid gradually to a pan.

Ingredients for 2 are:

5 g of dried porcini mushrooms (or other dried)

110g fresh dark-gilled mushrooms

30g butter

½ medium onion, finely chopped

85-90g risotto rice

75ml dry madeira

1 tablespoon fresh grated parmesan

First, soak your dried mushrooms in ½ pint of boiling water – leave to soak for about 30 mins

Meanwhile, heat your oven to 300F and chop up your onion and your mushroom.

Sweat your chopped onion in the melted butter for about 5 minutes and then add your chopped fresh mushrooms and stir to coat well. Set aside until your dried mushrooms are finished soaking.

Strain your dried mushrooms in a sieve through double kitchen roll, reserving the lovely mushroomy water.  Chop up the mushroom finely and add to your onion/mushroom mix in the pan – cook over a low heat until they release their juice -about 15 minutes. While it’s doing that, put your cooking/serving dish in the over to warm up.

Add the rice and give it a good stir to coat with butter. Add the Madeira, mushroom water, ½ teaspoon of salt and a grind of pepper. Bring it up to simmer, then decant everything into the heated dish and pop in the over for 20 minutes.

After 20 minutes, stir in grated parmesan and cook for a further 15 minutes. When it’s done you should have a lovely unctuous, mushroomy mess. Serve with some shaved parmesan for extra cheffiness!

It was pretty damn good, and there is just enough left over to fry up a little risotto cake for lunch.

In other news, I made banana bread yesterday. I know this isn’t a big deal and bakers all over the world are rolling their eyes. But while I love to cook, I don’t bake, however needs must when you can’t get any biscuits. I found a recipe for banana bread that used a bit of sour dough starter, and as we have plenty of that lurking around, I gave it a go, and it turned out pretty well, and I have something to eat with a cup of tea, so a win all around.

Happy weekend everyone