Mushroom risotto

Serves 4  

Preparation time: 5 minutes
Cooking time: 30 - 40 minutes

Ingredients
350g Mushrooms (you can use any, I like to use a mixture), 250g sliced and 100g cut into chunks (these are going to be scattered on the top) 
1½ litres of chicken stock, in a pan keeping hot 
3 tbsp olive oil 
1 onion, chopped finely 
1 large garlic clove, grated or finely chopped 
2 tbsp flat leaf parsley, finely chopped 
1 tsp porcini powder 
100ml Marsala or white wine 
300g risotto rice 
60g butter 
100g Parmesan, grated 
Salt 
Pepper 

Method
Heat the oil in a large pan (I use my le creuset pot but a large frying pan would also work). Cook the sliced mushrooms on a medium heat for 3-5 minutes until starting to go brown.  Add the onion and cook for another 3 minutes.  Add the garlic and cook for a further minute.  Add the porcini powder and stir and then add the parsley.  If at any point it looks like it is starting to catch or burn add a very small amount of oil. 

Put the rice in and thoroughly mix to ensure all the grains are coated with the oil.  Turn up the heat to high medium and add a ladle of the hot stock. You now need to just agitate the pot and stir again - the agitation stops the need to use the spoon as much and there is less risk of breaking the grains. Add a ladle of stock when the liquid all goes, the tricky thing is you don’t want it to go too dry as you don’t want it to stick but you also do not want to add it too early.  The mixture should be just bubbling continuously.  Keep going - this process will take anywhere between 20-30 minutes depending on the rice and the heat.  You know it is done when you have only a little stock left and the rice is just cooked through, it should not be chalky at all.  If you run out of stock you can add a little boiling water, you should not need it but if you do just add a little at a time, the water will obviously reduce the chicken flavour so you don’t want to add more than you need to. 

Towards the end of your cooking time put 15g of butter and your remaining mushrooms to a sauté pan and cook quickly on a high heat until cooked through.  Season with salt. 

Take the risotto off of the heat and stir through the butter, 80g of Parmesan, some cracked black pepper and the remaining stock. Check the seasoning, it should be perfect but if it is not, add a little salt.  Serve topped with the sautéed mushrooms. 

Enjoy hot, risotto waits for no man ;-)