EAT | Mushroom Risotto

One of my favorite things to eat is Risotto. Mushroom Risotto to be more specific. It's such a simple dish, but so heart-warming and cozy. I love to eat it just with a poached egg on top. And I have a fool-prof recipe, that you can make with just some pantry staples. 

- 100g of arborio rice (or any other short grain rice)

- 150g of sliced mushrooms (fresh is better, but canned also work)

- 1 Shallot

- 1 garlic

- 1 tea spoon of chopped parsley

- 1 table spoon of olive oil

- 1 table spoon of butter

- 1 cup of shredded cheese (mozzarella, emmental, parmesan -- whatever you have on hand)

- 1 Knorr Natura Chicken Stock Pot -- I don't like to use stock cubes, but if that's all you have, do it.

- 500 ml of water

- Tree table spoons of white wine

- Salt and Pepper

Start by heating up the water to dissolve your Knorr Chicken Stock Pot in. Just drop the content of the chicken stock pot on hot water and stir for a minute until it's fully dissolved.

Move on to finely chopping the shallot, the garlic and the parsley.

On a wide pan, on medium heat, add your butter and your olive oil and wait until the butter is almost melted. Add the shallot and the parsley. When the shallot is translucid add the garlic, the mushrooms and the pepper. Let the mushrooms cook for maybe 5 min, string once in a while so that nothing burns. When you feel like your mushrooms are cooked -- I always taste them -- add the rice. Keep string, and let the rice cook and absorb all the yummy-ness going on on that pot. Once you have pretty much no liquid, add the white wine and keep stirring The trick here is that you always need to stir the rice because string helps releasing all the starches that make a super creamy risotto. When all the wine is absorbed and you can't smell alcohol anymore, add two ladles of the stock to the rice and stir. Wait until most of the liquid is absorbed, add two more ladles of stock, and keep repeating this process until the rice is al dente or until you run of of stock -- (you wont tho, 500ml of stock is more than enough). When you feel like the rice is cooked, add the cheese. Add as much as you want, and as much as you like. There's no such thing as too much cheese.

Right at the end, taste the rice to check it for salt. Sometimes the stock or the cheese is really salty and you don't need to add any more salt, other times you may need to add some salt, so I always wait until the end to do it. And it's ready.