11 October 2009

Mushroom risotto

Since I went foraging for mushrooms a couple of weeks back, I've been hankering for more and more mushrooms and so I decided to make a mushroom risotto.

Unfortunately I don't live near a good mushroom place, so had to buy from the shop and even there I wasn't too lucky, as there were only shiitake mushrooms available fresh at the time. I bought a packet of dried chantrelles and a packet of dried porchinis. Very expensive!

So, 40 g each of the dried mushrooms went into the collander and were thoroughly rinsed. Then I placed the collander in a big bowl and poured boiling water until everything was well covered. I left them to soak for just over an hour.

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I put some arborio rice to boil (30 mins) with about 600 ml liquid, of which about 200 ml was the liquid from a can of mushrooms. I'd saved it a couple of days earlier from when I made Thai Green Curry.

Then the now fairly re-hydrated mushrooms went into the frying pan with 4 tbsp butter. After a few minutes I also added the shiitake mushrooms and I fried them for a further 15 minutes. This seems long, but then the dried mushrooms tend to feel a bit leathery. I added some salt as well, but not much.

At this point the rice was almost done, so I added the mushrooms and a bit more water. I also added some crispy salad onion - about 3 tbsp, as a cheat, I should really have fried onion to begin with.

When I tasted the finished result, it wasn't sufficiently seasoned, so I added a tsp of Japanese soy sauce and a tbsp of dried dill.

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I served the risotto with smoked salmon and it was very nice for a Friday night. Besides, we were celebrating that I'm temporarily a house wife. Hopefully I'll have a bit more time to come up with new dishes.

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