Last updated 21:37, Thursday, 27 March 2008

THE ART of making risotto is a great skill to have as it can be extremely versatile. Once you have learnt the method you can change the flavour to suit your mood.

It has got a reputation of being a very lengthy and complicated recipe, but if you have a little time on your hands, it’s actually quite easy.

Although you do have to be on hand to help it along, the skill level required to make risotto is set very low, so even beginners can have a go.

Here’s our mushroom risotto.

Serves 4

1.5 litres vegetable stock (made using two stock cubes)

500ml white wine

tablespoons olive oil

1 small knob of butter

1 medium onion, finely diced

1 leek, washed and shredded

2 cloves of garlic, crushed

10g dried wild mushrooms, soaked in a little boiling water. Drain them of their soaking water, but retain this to put into the risotto as it will have created a nice mushroomy stock.

250g button mushrooms, sliced

500g arborio rice

75g fresh grated parmesan cheese

1 small handful of freshly chopped tarragon

Salt and pepper

A few parmesan shavings

Put the stock and the wine in a saucepan. Bring them to the boil. Then turn down to a low simmer.

Heat the oil and the butter in another sauce pan. Add the onion, leek and garlic and sauté over a medium heat until the vegetables become soft and translucent.

Add the button mushrooms and the drained wild mushrooms. Cook for around five minutes until the mushrooms become tender.

Pour in the rice and cook for a few minutes. Stir the rice around the pan to let it get coated with oil.

Add a good ladleful of the stock to the rice. Allow it to bubble around the rice and give it a good stir. The stock should be taken up by the rice so appear to have evaporated.

As it disappears, add another ladleful. Continue this process of adding and stirring. By using this method you break down the starch in the rice and a lovely creamy sauce develops in the risotto. If you add all the stock at once, this won’t happen.

As you go along, you can start adding a bit more stock each time, but wait until it is absorbed before adding the next hit.

At this point, you can add in the mushroom soaking liquor. Keep back the very last bit though, as it may contain a bit of grit from the dried mushrooms, not very pleasant to eat!

It will take around 25 minutes to add all the stock, but there’s nothing more taxing required from you than a bit of casual stirring.

Just before serving add the parmesan cheese. Taste the risotto and decide whether it needs additional salt and pepper. We reckon the stock and the cheese will make it salty enough, but you may want to add pepper.

Stir the fresh tarragon into the risotto. We feel mushrooms have a great affinity with tarragon, with its mild aniseed flavour. If this is not for you then fresh parsley would also go well.

A few parmesan shavings over the top will be a great garnish.

Now, excluding the mushrooms and adding a different vegetable, meat, fish or a combination of some of those makes the risotto extremely flexible and to some extent a bit of a store cupboard saviour.

Some other suggestions are: Prawn and pea, we actually did this at the restaurant at the weekend, topped with some beautiful, locally caught mullet fillet.

Butternut squash, spinach and sage, a lovely vegetarian friendly combination.

Chicken and asparagus, a very sophisticated main course.