Our Favourite Mushroom Risotto

Risotto is one of my favourite dishes to cook. I love spending the evening in the kitchen with some music and a glass of red, just stirring away.

Use whatever interesting mushrooms you can find, button or brown are fine in a pinch, but if you have any other interesting varieties of wild mushrooms available to you, by all means throw those in too!

This recipe makes a fair amount, as it's such a labour of love I like to make the most of it and freeze the leftovers for a rainy day.

Ingredients

8 cups chicken bone broth

2-3 tablespoons butter (or ghee, or your cooking oil of choice)

1 small brown onion, diced

2 leeks, sliced into thin half moons

2 sticks celery, finely diced

3 (or more) cloves of garlic, diced

500g mushrooms, sliced (feel free to add more if you like an extra mushroomy risotto)

1 bay leaf

4-5 sprigs thyme (I just throw the whole things in and remove the 'sticks' before serving)

2 cups risotto rice of choice (my fav is carnaroli, but arborio is also perfect)

1/2 cup white wine (optional)

whole cream, parmesan, parsley, as desired

Method

1. heat chicken broth in a medium pot and bring to a simmer

2. melt half the butter in another large pot on a medium high heat, add onion, leek and celery and cook until translucent.

3. add garlic, mushrooms, bay leaf and thyme and cooking until mushrooms are soft.

4. season mushroom mixture with salt and pepper

5. turn heat down to medium and add rice to pot and stir until nice and coated and starting to look translucent

6. add the wine and cook until absorbed

7. using a ladle, add around 1 cup of warm broth to the pot and stir until mostly absorbed

8. continue adding one ladle at a time, stirring often, until rice is al dente - you might not need all the broth

9. once rice is done, I like to quickly stir through the remaining butter and a few tablespoons of whole cream

10. season one last time, remove the thyme, and serve topped with parmesan and parsley