Mushroom Risotto and Quick-fix Garlic Bread

One night, when I was craving the goodness of cheese and the comfort of rice at once, risotto seemed the obvious choice. The only risotto-able vegetable I had in the fridge was a box of button mushrooms (and they’re not even a vegetable). I didn’t have Arborio rice so I just used the lovely local Ambe-mohor. The result was absolutely luscious. One look at it, and I knew I needed some garlic bread to achieve the highly aspired sigh.

Scroll down to see what I did!

Ingredients:

• 1 cup short grain rice (used Ambe-mohor)
• As many and as various mushrooms as you can lay your hands on
• 5-6 cloves of garlic
• 1 medium sized onion, chopped fine
• Extra virgin olive oil
• Butter
• Parmesan
• White wine
• Salt
• Pepper
• Parsley (or fresh fennel, as I did)

Method:

1. Heat a generous amount of oil and butter in a heavy bottomed pan.
2. Throw in the garlic and onions and sweat until soft.
3. Throw in the randomly chopped mushrooms and sauté until almost done. Remove.
4. In the same pan, heat some more oil and butter and sauté the rice until fragrant.
5. Season and keep adding the white wine in small quantities until the rice is almost cooked.
6. Return the mushrooms to the pot, add fennel, grate the parmesan, and give it one good stir. Cover and let sit for a few minutes.
7. To serve, spoon onto a plate while still warm, grate on some more of that cheese, and drizzle with olive oil.

Oh, and for the no-one-will-know garlic bread, pull out those hot dog buns you bought 3 days ago and slit them into fours. Soften some table butter, throw in some parsley or oregano, and loads of chopped garlic. Toast the old buns lightly and slather will garlic butter.

No one will know.