I love risotto. The creaminess… mmmm…. I get all warm inside thinking about it. The downsides of risotto are that it takes forever to cook, it requires lots of attention and it doesn’t really re-heat well. I was delighted to see an Oven-baked Mushroom Risotto over at The Passionate Cook. Does it still take forever to cook? Yes, it does. But the good news is that you don’t have to stir it continuously. And I actually had it for lunch the next day and it wasn’t all that bad (held up much better than the Beet Risotto I made before). The following recipe is based on the one I found at The Passionate Cook, with Ashley’s special touches!

Baked Mushroom Risotto

The Ingredients:

• 1 oz. dried porcini
• 8 oz. fresh mushrooms (I used Baby Bellas), chopped ‘rustic’
• 4 Tbs. butter
• 1 large onion, finely chopped,
• 2 cloves of garlic, minced
• 1 Tbs. fresh thyme
• 1/3 cup hazelnuts, chopped
• 8 oz. Arborio rice
• 4 fl. oz. beer
• 32 oz. chicken stock (or vegetable stock to keep it vegetarian)
• 3 oz. Reggio Parmesano, grated and divided
• 5 oz. Fontina (I couldn’t find any, so I used queso fresco), thinly sliced

The Steps:

1. Preheat oven to 300 F.
2. Reconstitute the dried porcini mushrooms according to package. Remove mushrooms and chop. Strain liquid and reserve.
3. Melt butter in pan and add onions and garlic. Fry until browning and then add all mushrooms and cook until most of the liquid has been absorbed.
4. Stir in Rice and sweat for about 3 minutes. Then deglaze the pan with the beer and remve the pan from the heat.
5. Add the hazelnuts, thyme, 1 1/2 cups of the chicken stock and 1/2 cup of the retained mushroom liquid. Mix throughly.
6. Grease an oven proof dish with butter and add the rice mix. Put into the preheated oven and cook for 20 minutes.
7. Add 1/2 of the shredded cheese and 1 1/4 cup chicken stock. Mix again and return to oven for another 15 minutes.
8. Add the remaining cheese and another 1 cup chicen stock. Mix and return to oven for 20 minutes.
9. Check the rice, it should be soft, but still retain some firmness. Stir again and top with the slices of cheese.
10. Turn the oven to broil and return dish to oven. Cook for 4 minutes or until cheese is melted. Remove from oven and serve!

This entry was posted on Sunday, April 1st, 2007 at 9:23 pm and is filed under Vegetarian. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.