Mushroom Risotto

January 1, 2002

Christmas seems to be forever coming, and then it is over in a matter of a few swift hours.

While I have been working on the days in between, there has still been time for relaxing the catching up with friends for some seasonal hospitality.

As it's summer here, a favourite kind of entertaining at this time of the year is the open home where people call in for an hour or two from around noon onwards. There's no full scale catering as such at these informal affairs, but there are generally breads, sliced ham, cheeses, dips, olives, Christmas cake and mince pies - something to nibble on with a glass or two of bubbly. One of my colleagues whizzed up some pretty grand margaritas on Christmas Day while we fell upon an excellent smoked mussel dip her daughters had made.

Boxing Day saw us blobbing out on a couch on a friend's verandah, listing to a bit of jazz, pleased that Christmas shopping was finished for another year. As we left, others were arriving. (She tells me the last departed at 3am!)

The next night we caught up with some former neighbours for a barbecue and sat at a long table on their terrace, admiring the last rays of the sun picking out the leaves on their giant walnut tree and catching up on several years' happenings.

Post-Christmas get togethers are much more relaxed than the pre-Christmas social whirl. There's not the pressure of unfinished shopping to deal with - have we got everything together for Christmas dinner? Have we forgotten anything or anyone?

And then there are the after-Christmas sales! This year, at my suggestion, the sons gave me book vouchers and it was great discovering some of the cookbooks I had mentally selected were 25 percent cheaper come Boxing Day.

As usual, when I go Christmas shopping for my sister I start coveting the stuff I have bought her. Our tastes are similar and I figure if I like it, she'll like it. Then when I start wrapping it up I want to keep it. This year I went shopping at the new gourmet section at a local department store. I bought her a nice selection of Italian herbs and flavourings and was looking for my own treat when I came across some dried wild mushrooms imported from France.

I have often looked around the lawn and garden during that damp humid weather that seems to favour mushroom growth, and wondered if the crop growing there was edible or deadly poisonous. Even buying a book on mushroom varieties found in New Zealand was no real help because I couldn't trust myself to make safe identifications. So I decided to splash out on a jar of dried bolets, pleurotes, champignons noirs and ceps.

Friday was stay at home night and, after the various excesses of Christmas, some simple fare seemed a good idea. Risotto it would be. Better still, wild mushroom risotto.

At the heart of a good risotto dish is a good rice and my personal favourite is Arborio rice. It has a good percentage of soluble starch which is what gives risotto a nice creamy finish when it is cooked. Arborio rice is grown in the Po Valley in Piedmont, Italy. Other risotto rices are Roma, Padano, Carnaroli, Baldo and Vialone Nano.

Also integral to a dish of risotto is a good stock. If you have time to make your own chicken stock, so much the better. I used commercially prepared chicken stock this time, flavoured up with white wine and a slosh of cognac.

There is no need to rush out and look for dried wild mushrooms from France. I used them only because I had them, and I augmented them with some cultivated white mushrooms. I often use dried porcini mushrooms to give fresh mushrooms more intensity and these would work well in this dish, too.

I also added pumpkin to the dish, more for the colour contrast than the flavour as I didn't have a particularly large chunk of it in the fridge.

Mushroom Risotto

2 cups Arborio rice
2 tablespoons olive oil
2 medium onions, finely sliced
25g dried mushrooms, soaked in boiling water for an hour
2 cups sliced cultivated mushrooms (brown or white)
1 cup skinned diced pumpkin
750ml chicken stock
200ml dry white wine
2 tablespoons cognac (optional)
2 bayleaves
handful torn basil
1/2 cup shaved parmesan cheese

Place the chicken stock, wine and cognac in a saucepan and bring to the boil. Turn back heat to a simmer and add the bayleaves.

Drain the soaked mushrooms and rinse them well to remove any gritty bits. Discard the soaking water. Slice the cleaned fresh mushrooms thickly and saute with the dried, drained mushrooms in a little butter or olive oil until floppy. Any juice can be poured into the stock. Set aside until required (top picture).

Heat the oil in a deep frypan. add the rice and cook for about five minutes until it starts to brown. Add the onion and saute until tender then add the pumpkin. Pour in a ladle of hot chicken stock and simmer, stirring from time to time, until the liquid evaporates. Continue in this fashion, adding the stock a ladleful at a time until it is used up and the rice is tender but still a little firm or al dente in the centre. Arborio rice takes approximately 18-20 minutes to reach this stage. The rice should by now be moist and creamy. Stir in the mushrooms and reheat. Sprinkle over the torn basil and stir through the parmesan cheese (bottom picture). Serve immediately.

Great with a nice chilled chardonnay as the buttery flavour complements the rice and mushrooms.