MMMM-MMM!! Risottooooo! I love risotto. Like pasta, you can add so many things to this versatile dish and the flavour combinations are endless. This recipe calls for red wine. Some people say that you should cook only with the wine that you are drinking with the meal. I can’t help but wonder who these people are. They must be crazy rich people with an endless cellar full of fancy wine. That can get expensive. If I was saving a special bottle of wine that had sentimental value, or was rare and costly the last thing that I would do is pour it into a cooking pan. That being said, you also shouldn’t pour some cheap hooch in the dish that you are slaving over either, or else or dish will taste like cheap hooch. I use wine that tastes good enough to drink (in other words, you shouldn’t wince when you drink it) and is affordable.  So here we have a risotto recipe with red wine and MUSHROOMS, yum!  We need a sturdy wine to balance out the richness of the dish. It should be wine with a bit of rustic earthiness that will marry nicely with the mushrooms. It should also be elegant. I propose Martín Berdugo Ribera del Duero. Enjoy!

Ingredients

Serves 4

Method

In a large pot heat olive oil over medium heat. Add the shallot and mushrooms, sauté until thoroughly cooked, but not browned. Remove the mushrooms from the pan and add the butter and the rice constantly stirring so that each grain of rice is coated with butter. Add the wine to the rice and a large ladle of stock and continue to cook, constantly stirring until the liquid is absorbed into the rice. Keep adding the stock using the same method until the rice is al dente and creamy. Fold in the mushrooms, thyme, and parmesan cheese.

All done! Eat it NOW, NOW,  NOW!!