Ingredients
- 1 leek, cut down the middle and sliced thinly
- 120ml white wine
- 800ml (or thereabouts) stock
- Parmesan or other strong hard cheese (I like grana padano)
- Risotto rice (check the packet for quantity, or just eyeball it)
- Your preference of mixins
Method
-
Fry the leek (and any mixins that need frying) with a little oil in a large sauté or frying pan.
-
Add the rice and fry for a couple of minutes. Supposedly you should be toasting the rice a little here, but I don’t think it makes much difference (plus if you go too far and burn the rice, you have to start over).
-
‘Deglaze’ with some wine, stir and continue to cook for a minute or so before adding just enough stock to cover everything. Continue topping up with stock and wine until the rice is cooked. Season to taste.
-
Before serving, I like to remove from the heat and dump in a handful of grated parmesan. You don’t have to, but it does wonderful things to the texture.
Mixins
You can make this up as you go along, but here are a handful of examples I like:
-
Chicken & mushroom. (Fry the chicken separately to get a nicer browning on it.) You can swap the chicken for a vegetarian alternative pretty seamlessly.
-
Bacon & (extra) leek. Add quartered cherry tomatoes right at the end to brighten the flavours.
-
Lemon. Add lemon juice to the liquid, with or without other mixins.