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Nothing goes together better than pumpkin and sage.. and if you make that sage crispy in some brown butter and serve it on top of this creamy, oozy pumpkin risotto, you’re really on to something special!
I blend the pumpkin into a puree and fold that through the risotto at the end to maximise the pumpkin flavour and to make it extra velvety and rich… also it just looks prettier being vibrant orange too!
1 med-large butternut pumpkin, peeled, cut into small cubes
3 tbsp olive oil
100 gram butter
3-4 cups chicken or vegetable stock
1 medium onions, diced
4 clove garlic, chopped
1 cup arborio rice
1/2 cup white wine
Around 15 fresh sage leaves
1/2 cup grated parmesan cheese
Salt and pepper to taste
This recipe is pretty flavoursome on it’s own with the addition of the crispy sage and pumpkin, but if you want to make some additions, try these:
Risotto is a very simple dish at it’s core and should still be delicious with only a handful of ingredients so if yours is bland here are some tips
Aside from the rice, stock is the second most important ingredient in risotto. So, if you use a cheap, flavourless stock, your risotto will taste very lacklustre.
After sautéing the onions and garlic, make sure you toast the rice for a few minutes to give the risotto an extra layer of flavour. You don’t necessarily want the colour to change, but you will know it’s toasted enough when it smells slightly nutty.
It doesn’t have to be a premium or expensive wine, but wine is what gives to risotto a bit of acidy to balance the rich, creaminess of it. So, after toasting the rice, deglaze the pan with at least a cup of wine an let that absorb before mounting with stock.
Sometimes when something is tasting bland, all it needs is a good pinch of salt. So if your risotto isn’t really popping, add a pinch of salt, give it a stir, taste it and repeat if necessary. If you’re worried about going over board and ruining the batch, take a small scoop out, add some salt and see how much you need before committing to the whole pot.
The creaminess in risotto primarily comes from the starch in the rice. The more you stir and agitate it, the more that starch rubs off from the grains and forms a velvety sauce around the rice.
So technically, you should be able to make a luscious, creamy risotto without an unnecessary amount of fat like butter. That being said though, one of best things about risotto is the generous slab of butter and parmesan folded through at the end. So if you want to make it extra creamy, add an extra half ladle of stock and a knob of butter just before serving so the rice grains are suspended in a sauce rather than all being congealed together.
Think of risotto as pasta in a sauce, if it’s a little bit thick and clumped together, add a little more liquid to loosen everything up.
If your risotto is still hard, it needs more cooking. You want to cook risotto low and slow so that the stock absorbs all the way to the centre of the rice grains.
If you cook it hard and fast, you run the risk of only cooking the outer part of the grain, leaving it still hard and chalky in the middle.
Any pumpkin (or squash) will work great for this recipe but make sure it is ripe and full of flavour as it’s the star ingredient.
Look for a pumpkin that:
Pumpkin risotto is best eaten straight away as the rice grains will continue to absorb any liquid it’s sitting in. If you do have leftovers, you can store them in the fridge in an airtight container for around 4 days.
Sometimes just because you can do something doesn’t mean you should. Although it is very possible to freeze any leftovers, I wouldn’t recommend freezing leftovers. Cooked rice in general really doesn’t fare well to being frozen as the moisture in the grains freeze causing ice crystals. These crystals break up the rice grain, leaving to rice soggy and grainy when defrosted.
By all means, freeze it if you have to, but I wouldn’t recommend it.
My absolute favourite thing to do with leftover, day-ish old risotto is to make arancini!
I have a recipe here, which you can use with any leftover risotto you have.
You want to aim for a ratio of 3 parts liquid to 1 part rice for risotto. Always have extra on hand however, because depending on the heat of your stove or width of the pan, the liquid might evaporate faster than usual before having a chance to absorb into the rice.
Rice is gluten free, so if all of the other ingredients you use are free from gluten (like your stock), then so is your risotto!
Although you can really use any type you have on hand, a dryer white wine is best. Aim for a Pinot Grigio and Sauvignon Blanc.
Mon Mack Food is my little space to share my passion for food. It is also a place to document the recipes I’ve created while cooking for friends and family! While it is now just a hobby, my absolute dream is to build this project into something I can one day call my job 🙂
