Tis the season to eat all the comfort food!
Having created a four elements feast to celebrate Samhain I thought it would be a good idea to show you exactly what I made. If you are unsure what Samhain is, in simple terms is a Gaelic festival marking the end of the harvest season and the beginning of winter or the “darker half” of the year. Traditionally, it is celebrated from 31 October to 1 November.
The Earth Element was Mushroom Risotto, Air was pumpkin pie with pecan and maple whipped cream, Fire was beef rendang with deep fried enoki mushrooms and Water was butternut squash soup with cream and croutons.
Gather all your ingredients as this is a super simple recipe and only takes 25 minutes from start to finish.
Ingredients:
500g chestnut mushrooms
1 vegetable stock cube
2 tbsp olive oil
1 onion, finely chopped
2 garlic cloves, finely chopped
300g risotto rice
1 x 175ml glass white wine
25g butter
50g parmesan
Method:
Heat 2 tbsp olive oil in a shallow saucepan or deep frying pan over a medium flame. Add 1 finely chopped onion and 2 finely chopped garlic cloves, then fry for about 5 mins until soft.
Stir in the chopped chestnut mushrooms and season with salt and pepper. Cook for 8 mins until the mushrooms have softened.
Tip 300g risotto rice into the pan and cook for 1 min. Pour over a 175ml glass of white wine and let it bubble to nothing so the alcohol evaporates.
Keep the pan over a medium heat and pour in a quarter of the vegetable stock. Simmer the rice, stirring often, until the rice has absorbed all the liquid.
Add about the same amount of stock again and continue to simmer and stir – it should start to become creamy, plump and tender. By the time the final quarter of stock is added, the rice should be almost cooked.
Continue stirring until the rice is cooked. If the rice is still under cooked, add a splash of water. Take the pan off the heat, add 25g butter and scatter over 25g grated parmesan.
Cover and leave for a few mins so that the rice can take up any excess liquid as it cools a bit. Give the risotto a final stir, spoon into bowls and scatter with the remaining 25g grated cheese.
I’m going to grab some wild mushrooms from our local Chinese market and make this again including those and dried porcini mushrooms too. The dept of flavour from the chestnut mushrooms was amazing so I can only imagine it would be so much better with stronger tasting wild mushrooms!
