I have been such a fail about writing about my culinary school experiences and it’s been four weeks already!! We’ve done loads of different things – starting with salads, soups, sauces and doing various starches as well (rice, quinoa, cous cous, lentil salad, POTATO!). We have poultry week this week – did a nice duck breast today. Along with having some michelin star chefs come in and teach us different things!! Excitement.
So one of the dishes we have learned to make is a very good mushroom risotto. I’ve made risotto before, multiple times in life and it is typically good, but my methods are less than chef like. Now I have a professional and delicious way to make risotto and I can share it with you.
Generally I’m not much of a mushroom person, but i’ll eat this – which means it must be good. So here goes!
Ingredients: for 100 grams of risotto
Red onion – cut into little dices so you have a handful
A couple gloves of garlic – also chopped up
Risotto (100 grams)
Mushrooms – whatever type you like! I used dried mushrooms and fresh button mushrooms, sliced
White wine
Vegetable stock (or chicken stock)
Shredded parmesan (depending on how cheesy you want it, perhaps 1/4 to 3/4 cup of the cheese)
Butter (2 tablespoon)
Salt/Pepper for taste
Instructions:
If you are using dried mushrooms (dehydrated mushrooms) – then soak a few in warm water and cover. Whilst you prepare the rest, it will get soft and you can chop them up. Leave the water that you were soaking them in, as you can use that as stock.
If you are using fresh mushrooms – slice them up and sauté them and set them aside.
To start – get the deep pan you will use and sweat the onion and garlic in 1 tablespoon of butter (use low heat and it is done once the onion becomes transparent, 5-7 minutes). Important to use low heat as you don’t want to burn the garlic and onion. Once you put the onion and garlic in, add in some salt to kill that raw taste.
Once that is ready, add in the risotto and sweat that as well till rice is also transparent. Then you can add in your mushrooms.
Add in some white wine – just enough to cover the rice. Add some salt as well. Just as that is almost soaked up by the rice, add in a ladle of the stock (or the water from the dehydrated mushrooms, if you have it) and continue to stir over low/medium heat so there are slow bubbles. Keep adding in ladles of stock as it gets soaked up by the rice and taste as you go along. The rice needs to be al dente. It should take like 15-20 minutes before it is at the right consistency.
I say taste as you go along, because you can add in salt/pepper as you go!
So once the consistency is correct – take it off the heat and add in 1 tablespoon of butter and the shredded parmesan cheese (perhaps add it in 1/4 cup at a time to see what consistency you may prefer).
Then plate it up right away!! Best to eat it right away 🙂 And if you want (as I do) add in a couple drizzles of truffle oil on top. Or CHEESE! Yummy, I could really eat some right now.
Eating With Ayla 