Exotic mushroom, sage and brown rice risotto

I love a risotto. But it is a lot of work sometimes and in addition to that there is the perception that it is therefore also rather difficult to make.


To a certain degree this is right because if you are not careful, a risotto can easily turn stodgy. The trick of a risotto is to make sure that it is creamy.

What I thought might be nice is to take you  through the risotto step by step with pictures.

 Ingredients:

1 celery stick with leaves
1 small bunch of sage
Olive oil
80g butter (halved)
2 shallots
1 clove garlic
Salt and pepper
Punnet of exotic mushrooms : Portobello and Portobellini Shiitake, Shimeji, enoki  etc- chopped
1 1/2 cups brown rice
150ml vermouth - imparts a fantastic herbiness and sweetness to the dish
250 ml white wine (Chardonnay or a Chardonnay blend - I used a Chardonnay-Viognier from Woolies; I won't wax lyrical about the choice of wine and what it imparts)
1l chicken stock

1. Finely chop up the celery, sage, shallots and garlic. Gently melt half the butter with the olive oil in a pan over a low heat. Add the chopped celery etc and allow them to sauté until the onion and celery is translucent and the garlic and herbs become aromatic. Add a pinch of salt and pepper.

2. Add the chopped mushrooms and turn up the heat a little bit. Sauté until cooked.

3.  Remove and put onto a plate

4. Add the butter to the pan and once it is melted, add the rice and coat in the butter. Then add the vermouth and stir for all you're worth. Sorry, I shouldn't exaggerate, the stirring for all you're worth comes later... just stir.

5. Once the vermouth has evapourated, add a quarter of the chicken stock and stir on a high heat until the liquid has evapourated. Then add half the wine. Stir until the liquid has evapourated. Repeat twice more.

6. Add the mushrooms etc back to the rice and end with the third quarter of chicken stock. These stages give your risotto it's creaminess and YES! it is a lot of stirring. Expect this to take about 30-40 mins on a high heat.

7. But here's the nice thing, brown rice is rather more forgiving than arborio rice and won't get as stodgy so this is where you can cheat. Add the last quarter of chicken stock and allow the rice to cook through. It may be just slightly al dente and that is preferable to entirely soft rice. But only slightly al dente, too much and it will seem undercooked.

All that's left then is for you to serve and enjoy with a lightly dressed green salad.

- bon appetit