A creamy and delicious risotto, featuring plenty of mushrooms, exquisitely paired with fresh thyme and miso paste. A flavour bomb for your tastebuds.
About the mushroom risotto…
Dear friends,
I cannot believe how quickly time flies!
It was just few months ago that I started writing my website, and, day after day, I keep editing, and writing, and learning! Does anyone else feels like a 24 hour day sometimes it’s just not enough?
Well, thankfully, I spend most of my time doing one of my favourite things: cooking. And lots of times, I find myself cooking from memory some old dish of my childhood, revising it to my current tastes. The influences from work always find a way to sneak in, and bring new life to classics.
As you might know already, I am from Emilia Romagna, and over there, every autumn there are plenty of fairs going around, centred around mushrooms, and rightfully so, they are incredibly delicious!
I remember these plates full with tagliatelle ai funghi and risotto ai funghi, an intense and characteristic smell of roasted mushrooms permeating my senses, and it was divine!
I’m yet to find anyone that doesn’t like mushrooms, although I have to say, if not cooked well, they don’t look very appetising, even to me. It’s sometime a tricky ingredient to cook with, but there are some recipes that are just that good and simple to make.
So, since they are in season, and there is absolutely nothing better for my grumpiness that an easy risotto, here I bring you a vegan version, that makes the most of the natural earthy flavour of mushrooms, paired with oh so good miso, thyme and soy sauce. I think these flavours go so seamlessly together, that nowadays I hardly ever use just some of them.
Of course you can add cheese, like parmesan cheese (and brown butter would work wonders here), but I just want to do it differently this time.
In terms of rice type, I know there are many out there that swear by carnaroli, or other short-grain types; to be honest, I think it doesn’t make much of a difference, just don’t use long grain varieties, it would turn out more of a clumpy, mushy, and quite frankly, unappetising chunk of rice. Just don’t, please? This is the only limitation I give okay?
If you don’t make risotto very frequently, and you don’t want to have a full package lying around in your pantry doing nothing, an option would be to buy them loose. I know there are some scattered shops in London that sell ingredients by weight, how convenient?
Anywho, I hope you try this recipe, and if you do, let me know down below in the comment area.
Enjoy!
List of Ingredients
For mushroom stock:
- Dry porcini, 30gr
- Hot boiling water, 600ml
For the risotto:
- Arborio rice, 130gr
- Garlic, 1 small clove
- Oil, 1 tbsp
- Thyme, 3-4 sprigs
- Mushrooms, 250gr (I used chestnut mushrooms, but porcini, oyster, shiitake would work well too)
- White miso paste, 20gr
- Soy sauce, 10gr
- Vegetable oil, 1 tbsp
Servings
2 people as a main
Method
- First off start by preparing the stock, by soaking the dry porcini mushrooms in a jug with boiling hot water and let them sit for at least an hour.
- Heat your heavy sauce pan with a tbsp of oil on a medium heat, then add the finely chopped garlic and thyme, and cook for a couple of minutes till fragran.
- Add the arborio rice and toast in the pan for 2-3 minutes (this adds a little nutty flavour to the rice), then add the miso, the soy sauce and initially ⅓ of the stock, and cook for 30-40 minutes on a low-medium, slowly adding a ladle of stock every time the rice has almost absorbed all the liquid it was cooking in. Keep a bit of hot water on the side in case you need to add more liquid, and don’t forget to stir frequently to avoid the rice sticking to the bottom of the pan.
- Once it’s cooked through, but still retaining a bit of bite, serve and eat immediately.