Let’s celebrate summer with romance and good food. Here is the perfect date night dinner. It will be supper impressive to your hunny but you don’t need to be a master chef to take it on. This dish is decadent without being too heavy. The light buttery taste of the mushrooms and the simple sweetness of the peas pari perfectly with the creaminess of the rice.
We LOVE this recipe and couldn’t wait to share it with out. Maybe you could give this one a try for our long weekend coming up soon? How about plan a memorial weekend date night, press pause on life and enjoy each other and good food.
This risotto pairs perfectly with seared scallops (recipe coming next week). If you want to have a simple vegetarian dinner this would be perfect as is and skip learning about the scallops. However, if you are into learning how to cook impressive seafood then stay tuned! The scallops in caper sauce is the perfect sharp almost lemony tang to sass up the light creamy risotto. It is all scary good!
- 1 pound sliced mushrooms
- 1/2 tsp salt
- 1 tbsp butter
- 12 ounces Arborio rice
- 1/2 cup sweet onion diced or shallots
- 2 tbsp olive or avocado oil
- 1/2 cup white wine
- 4-5 cups vegetable or chicken broth room temp or warmed in microwave
- 1/2 cup fresh shredded parmesan cheese if desired
- 1 cup frozen peas (thawed)
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In large sauce pan (I used my dutch oven), add butter and mushrooms. Sprinkle with salt and cook until juices have released and are done. Remove from pan and reserve for later.
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In same pan over medium heat, add 2 tbsp oil. Add rice and stir until rice is coated with oil. Cook and stir for 2-4 minutes until just before rice starts to brown.
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Add 1/2 cup white wine. Stir constantly until completely absorbed.
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Add 1/2 cup broth, stir completely until absorbed and rice is starting to seem dry. Add 1/2 cup broth at a time, stirring constantly and allowing broth to absorb completely before adding more. When 4 cups have been added, taste for doneness. Rice should be creamy and cooked to al dente. It should have just a little firmness to it.
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Stir in mushrooms with any liquid that is with them. Stir in peas. Taste for salt and stir in additional salt if needed.
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Stir in cheese if desired.
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This can be used as a complete vegetarian meal or as a side to another dish. We served it with our Pan Seared Scallops and Caper Sauce.
It is important to let the rice be al dente when you finish cooking it. Even if you aren’t a crazy al dente fan it is a super important step to getting this recipe to turn out. The residual heat and creaminess of the rice will continue to soften the rice grains as they sit even after you remove it from the heat. If you cook it fully instead of al dente it is still delicious but the texture goes from dynamic to static. Basically instead of having texture and individual grains you will end up with something closer to a paste.
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