Recipe: pumpkin risotto with sautéed mushrooms and roasted hazelnuts

Many people don’t attempt to cook risotto as a simple weekday meal because it comes with all sorts of rumours like ‘a hassle, complicated’ and so on. What a shame! Because it’s so delicious! And this dish proves once again: it really isn’t that much trouble at all.

You don’t have to be vegan at all to enjoy this dish, because this risotto is so rich in flavour that you really won’t miss the meat!

How to make the pumpkin risotto

1. Preheat the oven to 200 °
2. Remove the skin and seeds from the pumpkin and cut the flesh into 2 cm cubes. Cut the red onions into rings, tear any large mushrooms into smaller pieces and roughly chop the sage.
3. Spread the pumpkin cubes over a baking tray lined with baking paper, season with salt and pepper and roast everything in the oven for 20 minutes.
4. Remove the pumpkin from the oven and reduce the oven temperature to 175 °
5. Mix the hazelnuts with the agave syrup and spread them over a baking tray lined with baking paper. Roast the hazelnuts in the oven for 10 minutes until golden brown. Shake the hazelnuts once halfway through the cooking time.
6. Meanwhile, heat two tablespoons of olive oil in a heavy-based pan and add the Lassie risotto rice. Stir-fry the grains until they are glossy. Add approximately one ladleful of stock to the pan and wait until the stock has been absorbed before adding another ladleful of stock to the risotto. Repeat this step until the risotto is cooked and the stock has been used up; this takes approximately 20 minutes. Finally, stir the pumpkin into the risotto.
7. Meanwhile, heat a tablespoon of olive oil in a frying pan and stir-fry the mushrooms over high heat; this takes approximately 5 minutes. Add the chopped sage during the final minute.
8. Add another tablespoon of olive oil to the pan and stir-fry the red onion over medium-high heat until soft; this takes approximately 5 minutes. Add the balsamic vinegar to the red onion, reduce the heat and let everything simmer for another 2–3 minutes.
9. Divide the pumpkin risotto among the plates and garnish with sautéed mushrooms, red onion and roasted hazelnuts.

Also read:

• How to: reheat risotto
• Leftover risotto? Turn it into a pancake
• 4 rice fails and how to fix them

Recipe: Lassie