Mushroom Risotto With Truffle Oil Recipe

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This is a luxurious and comforting wintry dish. To serve for a dinner party, prepare steps 1-5 in advance. Spread the par-cooked rice on a baking sheet to cool quickly, and refrigerate. Continue from step 6 just before serving.

To include more vegetables, cook fresh mushrooms in butter along with the dried mushrooms, or stir in a little spinach and nutmeg towards the end. A simple way to check the risotto consistency when cooked, is to draw a line across the base of the pan with a spoon. The base should show for just a second or two, before the risotto flows back to cover it.

What goes with mushroom risotto?

Mushroom risotto is earthy and rich. The bouncy mushrooms provide a great texture to contrast with al dente arborio rice, however, if you want a little crunch, try toasting some cashews to add on top. Although the flavours of mushroom risotto make it best suited to autumn and winter, it would be lovely eaten as part of an Italian spread in summer alongside a zingy green salad with squidgy focaccia on the side.

Does meat go with mushroom risotto?

Mushrooms have a meaty texture and umami flavour compared to green vegetables, so there is no need to add meat in a mushroom risotto. However, if you would like to add meat, juicy chicken is the best match.

Ingredients Serves: 4

15g dried mushrooms
2 shallots or 1 onion, finely diced
150ml dry white wine (or hot water if preferred)
1tbsp oil
50g unsalted butter
250g carnaroli risotto rice
50g parmesan, finely grated
Truffle oil

Method

Rinse the dried mushrooms thoroughly in several changes of water to remove any sand or grit. Place mushrooms in a pan, and pour over 500ml boiling water. Simmer on a medium heat for 7 minutes.
While the mushrooms simmer, heat the oil in a heavy bottomed saucepan. Add the diced onion or shallots, and cook gently until translucent.
Lift out the mushrooms from the cooking water with a slotted spoon, and reserve the liquid, which is now mushroom stock. Cut or tear the mushrooms into bite-sized pieces.
Pour the mushroom stock through a very fine sieve or muslin cloth into a jug, taking care to discard any grit or sand at the bottom. Measure the stock back into a saucepan, and make up to 1l with boiling water. Set over a low heat, add 2/3 tsp of fine sea salt, and keep just below a simmer.
When the onion or shallots are cooked, increase heat to medium and add the rice. Stir continuously, until the rice is almost too hot to touch. Pour over the white wine, and stir until all the wine is absorbed. Reduce heat to low, add half the hot stock and leave to simmer for 10 minutes.
While the rice cooks, fry the mushrooms in half the butter with a pinch of salt, over a very low heat for 5 minutes. Set aside.
After simmering the rice for 10 minutes, add the remaining hot stock one ladle at a time, stirring continuously, until there are just a couple of ladles left in the pan and the rice is al dente. This should take about 5 minutes. The mixture will look fairly soupy – it will thicken further when you add the parmesan and leave to stand.
Turn off the heat. Stir through the remaining butter, mushrooms and parmesan. Cover and leave for 5 minutes.
Season to taste. Serve, drizzled with truffle oil.

Morel mushrooms are a rich source of iron and vitamin D, so are a great addition to your meals during the long winter months. Or why not dig into a bag of our addictive black truffle crisps?

Feeling inspired? Read our ultimate guide to truffle oil, and check out our range of dried mushrooms and truffles.

About the author

Nicola Lando is the co-founder and CEO of Sous Chef, where she has spent more than a decade sourcing, tasting and selecting specialist ingredients, cookware and tableware from producers around the world.

She trained at Leiths and later completed a stage at a Michelin-starred London restaurant, experiences that helped shape Sous Chef’s original mission: to give home cooks access to the same exceptional ingredients used by professional chefs.

Today, Nicola leads much of Sous Chef’s product sourcing and ingredient selection, working directly with producers and travelling internationally to food fairs, farms, mills and manufacturers. She tastes thousands of products each year and has built deep expertise across storecupboard ingredients, olive oil, condiments, spices, preserved foods and specialist cooking ingredients.

She holds an olive oil sommelier certification from ESAO in Spain, Imperial Executive Education’s Certificate in Nutrition for Health: Evidence-Based Tools and Strategies certificate; as well as studying Food Safety and Control at University of Greenwich.

Nicola also writes recipes and ingredient guides for Sous Chef, combining practical cooking experience with first-hand knowledge from producers, suppliers and specialist food makers. Her work focuses on helping cooks understand how to choose better ingredients, use them well, and get more flavour from their cooking.