Wild mushroom risotto
Risotto is perceived by many as difficult to prepare. I don’t mean the cooking time, as it obviously depends on the ingredients used, but the fact that rice in risotto is not that easy to cook correctly. The perfect risotto should be creamy, the rice should be al dente and the sauce covering it should be thick but liquid. It is known that not every rice is suitable for risotto. It is necessary to choose rice that absorbs liquid well during cooking, becomes slightly sticky, and does not fall apart. The best rice for risotto is arborio rice, although in some stores I also found rice simply called “risotto rice”.
Of course, you can prepare the simplest rice risotto in the world, which does not contain many other ingredients apart from rice, but this dish gives us a lot of different variations. While rice is the basis of risotto, but you can combine it with vegetables, meat and seafood. On the blog, you will find several risotto suggestions, including risotto with beets, risotto with prawns and risotto with zucchini and tomatoes. The recipe for risotto with wild mushrooms is my latest idea for a rice-based dish. This risotto couldn’t be missing on this blog and adding a recipe for it was only a matter of time.
I prepared this creamy, aromatic risotto from dried wild mushrooms and a mixture of frozen wild mushrooms. If you have fresh wild mushrooms at hand, you can feel free to use them, but unfortunately I wasn’t so lucky. To prepare this dish, I first soak the dried wild mushrooms and then boil them for a while. In turn, I fry frozen mushrooms first with onion and then also with the addition of pre-cooked dried mushrooms. Only then do I add rice to the prepared mushrooms, season them and add broth and cream. I serve risotto with freshly grated parmesan cheese and parsley. This meatless dish is perfect served as a stand-alone dinner or as an addition to meat.
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Ingredients for wild mushroom risotto.
- 20 g dried porcini mushrooms
- 250 ml cold water
- 100 ml cream *30%
- 850 ml – 950 ml vegetable broth
- 2 big cloves of garlic
- 150 g onion
- 2 tablespoons of olive oil
- 100 g frozen wild mushrooms
- 250 g risotto rice (arborio)
- 3/4 teaspoon of salt
- 1/2 teaspoon of black pepper
Additionally for serving:
- fresh parsley
- grated parmesan
How to make wild mushroom risotto.
Place the dried mushrooms in a bowl, pour cold water over them and set them aside for about 6 hours. Afterwards, put them in a pot with the water in which they were soaked, and cook over a low heat for 20 minutes.
Put the diced onion into a larger pot, add olive oil, and fry it over a medium heat for about 5 minutes. Following that, add the mashed garlic and continue frying for another few seconds. Then, add the thawed wild mushrooms and fry over a medium heat for 10 minutes, after which pour the pre-cooked dried mushrooms along with the water in, which they were boiled, and cook over a low heat for 15 minutes.
Pour the rice into the mushrooms, continue cooking for 2-3 minutes, then start pouring the vegetable broth. Pour the broth in small batches, and add each subsequent amount only when the previous one has evaporated significantly. Cook the rice over a medium heat for about 25-30 minutes, stirring it occasionally. 10 minutes before the end of cooking, add cream, salt and pepper. Serve the risotto sprinkled with finely chopped parsley and grated parmesan cheese.
Good to know when making wild mushroom risotto.
Add the amount of vegetable broth as needed. If you prefer a thicker risotto, add a slightly smaller amount of broth, i.e. 850 ml.
The cooking rice should not be stirred constantly, because then it will lose its creamy consistency.
The parmesan cheese can be replaced with pecorino cheese.
Do you like dishes with mushrooms? If so, try our recipe for Mushrooms stuffed with ham.
