Mushroom Risotto

This is a recipe adapted from Jamie's Italy - I think my favorite things about pastas and risottos is that you can often swap out some ingredients here and there and still end up with entirely delicious results. The fancy pants name in the book is risotto ai funghi e prezzemolo, which means roasted mushroom risotto with parsley. I more than doubled the mushroom content because I loooove them (and I think I could have still used more) and used oregano instead of thyme. I also used slightly less butter and more rice. Go make it!

Ingredients:

500g risotto rice
2 pints stock (I used turkey stock)
4 oz butter
1 large onion, finely chopped
2 ribs of celery, finely chopped
250ml dry white wine
500g chestnut mushrooms, washed and quartered (I'm sure other mushrooms would work as well, Jamie suggests wild mushrooms)
olive oil
salt and pepper
1 head of garlic, finely minced
1 small bunch of oregano, leaves picked
1 small bunch flat-leaf parsley, finely chopped
1 tablespoon lemon juice
Parmesan cheese, for grating

Directions:


Use a pan that you can move from the stove straight into the oven. Turn on oven to 400F/200C. Pour a glug of olive oil into pan and add mushrooms. Let them brown and add salt and pepper. Then add all but about 2 cloves of minced garlic, the oregano and 1 tbsp butter to the pan, and pop it in the oven. Roast for 15-20 minutes, until mushrooms are cooked through. Set mushrooms aside.

In the same pan, add 2 tbsp olive oil and a knob of butter, and the onion, celery and rest of the garlic. Fry very gently over low heat for about 15 minutes without browning. When vegetables are soft, add rice and turn up the heat. The rice is now beginning to fry, so keep stirring it. It will start to look slightly translucent. Add the wine and keep stirring, letting the alcohol evaporate.

Once the wine has cooked into the rice, add a ladle of hot stock and a pinch of salt. Turn the heat down to a simmer. Keep adding ladles of stock while stirring the rice, allowing each ladle to be absorbed before adding the next. This should take arond 15 minutes. If there isn't enough stock, add boiling water.

Remove from heat and add a generous amount of grated Parmesan, and the parsley. Add about half of the mushrooms to the risotto along with the lemon juice and give it a stir. Then put a lid on the pot and let it sit for 2 minutes. It should now be very creamy - serve on plates with the extra mushrooms on top. Serve with grated Parmesan.