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mushroom and nut risotto
Oct. 2nd, 2011 11:04 amKalypso_V came round to watch The Wedding of River Song, so I needed to cook something vegetarian (for her) but lowish fibre (for me). I had some pre-pack vegetable stock I needed to use, so risotto seemed a good idea. Alas, the chestnuts are not in season yet, so we went for cashews and pistachios instead. It was a good way of using up some nuts getting towards their Best Before, and the nuts blended well with the mushrooms.
The stock was a mix of a pack of Waitrose vegetable stock (which I wanted to try out), and a pack of organic miso cup-a-soup. The latter is not particularly cheap, but makes an excellent vegetable stock. I thought at first that the resulting stock blend was going to be too strongly flavoured, as it smelt very strong, but in fact it worked very well with the mushrooms and nuts.
Bring four metric cups (one litre) of stock to a gentle simmer in a saucepan. Chop a small onion and fry gently in a large frying pan for a few minutes in butter or oil. For this one I used a blend of butter, olive oil and sesame seed oil. Add 1 1/2 metric cups of white risotto rice (other rices can be used, but a proper risotto rice works best) and stir over a low heat for a couple of minutes. At this point you can add 1/3 cup wine and flash off the alcohol, but I didn't have any wine to hand and couldn't be bothered looking for something appropriate in the spirits cabinet. My normal recipe calls for adding 1/2 to 1 cup of simmering stock at a time to the frying pan and letting it all absorb before adding the next batch, but in this case I was going to steam some of the vegetables over the rice so was keeping it wetter than usual.
Started with 1 cup of stock, then added a punnet of mushrooms which my sous-chef had been quartering in the meantime. Stirred those in and let them heat through, adding more stock as necessary. Then stirred in a handful of cashews and shelled pistachios, and let them heat through. Added the rest of the stock, put some thinly sliced runner beans and carrots on top of the rice, then put the lid on and let the veg steam while the rice absorbed the stock. When the veg were almost done, I added a couple of knobs of butter, put the lid back on and turned off the heat, allowing the risotto to finish cooking and blending on its own heat for about five minutes.
This is fairly low in insoluble fibre as long as you use white rice. If you're cooking for someone with fibre tolerance problems, do not use brown rice. Other obvious potential problem ingredients:
-- the miso soup base is largely soya, which can be an IBS trigger and is an allergen for some people. It also has some brown rice, although not enough that it's likely to be problem just from the fibre point of view.
-- nuts are variable for people on a low fibre diet. Some people can handle them without problems, some can't. And of course some people have nut allergies.
-- butter is fairly low in lactose, but even so it can be a problem for very lactase-sensitive people. And there are people out there with milk solid allergies.
-- don't use flavoured oils such as sesame or walnut without checking for allergies.
-- if the alcohol isn't flashed off it can be an issue for people on medication. (And supertasters will not thank you for ruining the food with the taste of ethanol...)
The stock was a mix of a pack of Waitrose vegetable stock (which I wanted to try out), and a pack of organic miso cup-a-soup. The latter is not particularly cheap, but makes an excellent vegetable stock. I thought at first that the resulting stock blend was going to be too strongly flavoured, as it smelt very strong, but in fact it worked very well with the mushrooms and nuts.
Bring four metric cups (one litre) of stock to a gentle simmer in a saucepan. Chop a small onion and fry gently in a large frying pan for a few minutes in butter or oil. For this one I used a blend of butter, olive oil and sesame seed oil. Add 1 1/2 metric cups of white risotto rice (other rices can be used, but a proper risotto rice works best) and stir over a low heat for a couple of minutes. At this point you can add 1/3 cup wine and flash off the alcohol, but I didn't have any wine to hand and couldn't be bothered looking for something appropriate in the spirits cabinet. My normal recipe calls for adding 1/2 to 1 cup of simmering stock at a time to the frying pan and letting it all absorb before adding the next batch, but in this case I was going to steam some of the vegetables over the rice so was keeping it wetter than usual.
Started with 1 cup of stock, then added a punnet of mushrooms which my sous-chef had been quartering in the meantime. Stirred those in and let them heat through, adding more stock as necessary. Then stirred in a handful of cashews and shelled pistachios, and let them heat through. Added the rest of the stock, put some thinly sliced runner beans and carrots on top of the rice, then put the lid on and let the veg steam while the rice absorbed the stock. When the veg were almost done, I added a couple of knobs of butter, put the lid back on and turned off the heat, allowing the risotto to finish cooking and blending on its own heat for about five minutes.
This is fairly low in insoluble fibre as long as you use white rice. If you're cooking for someone with fibre tolerance problems, do not use brown rice. Other obvious potential problem ingredients:
-- the miso soup base is largely soya, which can be an IBS trigger and is an allergen for some people. It also has some brown rice, although not enough that it's likely to be problem just from the fibre point of view.
-- nuts are variable for people on a low fibre diet. Some people can handle them without problems, some can't. And of course some people have nut allergies.
-- butter is fairly low in lactose, but even so it can be a problem for very lactase-sensitive people. And there are people out there with milk solid allergies.
-- don't use flavoured oils such as sesame or walnut without checking for allergies.
-- if the alcohol isn't flashed off it can be an issue for people on medication. (And supertasters will not thank you for ruining the food with the taste of ethanol...)