Roasted Vegetable Risotto

I made this for the first time last night on a whim, and I will admit that I am quite taken with it. I invented this recipe fairly randomly, after my friends asked me to cook them dinner, and it was thankfully successful.

Start by slow roasting your vegetables, I used courgettes, red onion and red peppers, but you could also use any vegetables you like. Dice the vegetables into small chunks and sprinkle them with a little salt and some freshly ground black pepper, drizzle them with olive oil and toss, ensuring that they are fully coated in the oil. Grate or mince over a few cloves of garlic, and place them into a medium hot oven for about half an hour. About 10 minutes before the risotto is due to be finished, add some sun dried tomatoes, which add a nice tang to the risotto.

After the vegetables have been cooking for around 10 minutes, start on your risotto, finely chop half a red onion and put it into a mini blender to achieve a fine chop. Put the contents of the blender into a large frying pan with some salt and pepper and sweat it off for a few minutes on a high heat. Add the rice, and a little white wine if you wish, and cook off the wine, stirring as it cooks.

Make up your stock, and you will need quite a lot, I normally make about a litre to start off with, and then when the first litre has been absorbed, I taste the rice to see how chewy it is, and how much more stock it will require. Add the stock a bit at a time stirring with a wooden spoon until the stock has absorbed and then adding more, continue until all the stock has been absorbed and the rice is tender.

When the rice is cooked take the frying pan off the heat and add a large knob of butter, add some parmesan and stir it into the risotto. Remove the vegetables from the oven and add the risotto to the tray, use wooden spoons to toss the risotto and the vegetables together until combined, and serve, on warmed plates.

I created this on a whim and I will admit that I am immensely proud of it, it has a vibrancy and tang that makes it the perfect antidote to bland and boring white risottos, which so often lack interest and taste. This also makes the perfect dish for feeding a lot of people, as upscaling the quantities is pretty simple.

Ingredients

400g arborio rice
1 litre vegetable or chicken stock
small glug or white wine or vermouth
90g freshly grated parmesan
3 courgettes, diced
3 red peppers, chopped
3 cloves garlic, minced
salt & pepper
olive oil
large knob butter