Jamie’s 30 Minute Meals #5: Oozy Mushroom Risotto

Jamie’s 30 Minute Meals #5: Oozy Mushroom Risotto
This is our fifth official cooking/blogging experiment from Jamie’s 30 Minute Meals. Hey, we’ve made it through 10% of the book! I had plans to go to the Eveleigh Farmers’ Market on Saturday morning, so I figured we should find a recipe that uses ingredients I can get there. We settled on Oozy Mushroom Risotto, Spinach Salad, and Quick Raspberry & Lemon Cheesecake. For most of my life, mushrooms have been my most hated food, but I’ve been working to get over that in the past few years. I figured this would help. But I wasn’t going to use just any old crap button mushrooms from Coles. There’s always a stall at Eveleigh selling fancy mushrooms (“The Fun Guy”), so that was my first stop Saturday morning. Let me tell you: 500g of fresh exotic mushrooms is NOT cheap. Neither are dried porcini. I’m glad I suffered the expense though, as the resulting meal was well worth it.

Oozy Mushroom Risotto, Spinach Salad, Quick Raspberry & Lemon Cheesecake

Quick verdict: No substitutions on this one; we followed the recipe pretty much exactly. Elapsed time was 43:07, which wasn’t too bad. In terms of taste it was fantastic, and we both rated it 9.5/10. I would have never thought such a quick risotto would turn out so good! We did come up with a couple things we’d do differently next time though. Read on for a photo essay of the preparation.Pre-start prep: We got out all the necessary ingredients, tools, and cooking vessels. This week we also needed the food processor and a kettle full of boiled water. The kitchen was clean (well, as clean as it gets) and everything wiped down and ready to go. The oven was turned on and a big saucepan put on the stove to heat. The Snook also decided to wash the mushrooms ahead of time. (Alton says it’s okay!)

First up are the ingredient for the risotto: onion, celery, rosemary, dried porcini, arborio rice, a stock cube, white wine, garlic, butter, thyme, parmesan, lemon, and parsley.

Risotto ingredients

And of course, the mushrooms themselves! I asked for 500g of mixed “chestnut, oysters, and shiitake.”

Mushrooms

Next, the ingredients for the salad: pine nuts, balsamic vinegar, olive oil, lemon, baby spinach, mint, cucumber, and sun-dried tomatoes.

Salad ingredients

Lastly, the dessert ingredients: gingernut biscuits, hazelnuts, butter, lemon curd, lemon, (frozen) raspberries, light cream cheese, icing sugar, milk, vanilla, and dark chocolate.

Cheesecake ingredients

Pots and pans, ready to go!

Pots and pans

Our crappy food processor, ready to go. (Our new one should be here soon!)

Food processor

The first step in the risotto prep is to whizz up celery, onion, and dried porcini. The porcini smelled amazing – just like Vegemite! Lots of umami happening here.

Whizzing up risotto base

While I did that, the Snook got the pine nuts toasting for the salad.

Pine nuts

Here’s what the whizzed up risotto base looked like.

Whizzed up risotto base

The Snook cooked this in a pan with a couple slugs of olive oil.

Cooking

Now he’s added the white wine and the arborio rice.

Cooking

And now the real risotto process happens. He put in a crumbled stock cube and then began adding boiling water, a bit at a time. Over the next 20 minutes, he kept an eye on it, stirring and adding more water as necessary.

Adding stock

Pine nuts are toasted!

Pine nuts

Once the pine nuts came out of the pan, it went back on the heat with some oil. Then we tore up half the mushrooms and added them along with garlic and thyme. These came off the heat very quickly.

Sauteeing mushrooms

The rest of the mushrooms and thyme went into the risotto.

Risotto

Now we get started on the dessert. This step was fun at first, but in retrospect it was really stupid. I had to bash up the hazelnuts and the gingernut biscuits in a tea towel with a rolling pin. It would have been a lot faster to use the food processor, but presumably he figures yours is dirty from the risotto bits.

Bashing

After melting some butter in a saucepan, the Snook dumped in the bashed up cookies and nuts. This was another stupid step. Why get a saucepan messy to melt butter? We’ll use the microwave next time.

Into the butter

After grating in some lemon zest, we pressed the mixture into our chilled tumblers. It was pretty chunky. Plus we had a tea towel covered in crumbs, which is annoying.

Cheesecake base

Now for the salad! The toasted pine nuts go into a bowl along with balsamic, olive oil, lemon juice, and roughly chopped spinach.

Salad

Risotto is still going! Also, the mushrooms in the frying pan were put under the grill to crisp up.

Risotto

Completed salad with mint, cucumber (complete with arty scoring), and sundried tomatoes.

Salad

Next step on the dessert: adding lemon curd and raspberries.

Lemon curd and raspberries

The grilled mushrooms are finished! They smelled great.

Grilled mushrooms

Finishing off the risotto with parmesan and lemon juice…

Risotto

Finished meal! Chopped parsley was added to both the risotto and the grilled mushrooms, which were served on top.

Finished meal

And the dessert, with the “cheesecake” mixture and grated chocolate on top.

Cheesecake

Tasting notes: The risotto was GREAT. The Snook admits that the “stock cube + water” method was less hassle than stock, but he felt the resulting dish needed a little extra salt at the end to compensate. I was impressed with how well the mushrooms matched up to the strong flavours of rosemary, thyme, garlic, and parsley. They also retained their texture nicely. I don’t feel bad about the cost anymore – it was well worth it! The salad was simple but made a nice contrast. The cheesecake dessert was very nice, but the bottom was really chunky (due to my crappy bashing). Next time we’ll whiz it in the food processor and add melted butter from the microwave. We have plenty of leftovers of everything so we’re having it for dinner again tonight! Great little vegetarian feast for a cold autumn night…

Stay tuned next week for another recipe from Jamie’s 30 Minute Meals!

12 Comments

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  1. Ooh, I hate to say it, but I think Alton Brown might have gotten it wrong. The reason I’ve always believed not to wash mushrooms is that you wash away all the spores in the mushroom’s gills (which contribute to flavour).

    Waterlogging shouldn’t be a problem, you just cook them longer.

    hmmm. Can’t find any online references. Chairman Kaga and Hattori recommends never letting them take a bath. Jury is still out on that one.

    For the record, I wipe my mushrooms on a wet paper towel. To remove the sh*t.

  2. I’ve never heard anything about washing out spores being a problem. Some people even completely remove the gills from dark-gilled varieties (e.g. portobello).

  3. This calls for a double-blind experiment. And beer.

  4. I’m really enjoying this series. Thanks for taking the time to blog it.

  5. You’ve just sealed the deal… this meal looks amazing! Time to get this book :o)

  6. Okay, this is the one I’m definitely going to try!! Did you soak the dried porcini or pop them right in?

  7. They don’t get soaked at all; they get whizzed up dry. I guess they kinda rehydrate as you’re cooking them.

  8. i know umami is like a real thing and all, so don’t take this the wrong way…but i think only hipsters actually talk about it. 😉

  9. Oh, totally. I was mostly saying it to be funny. But really, “umami” is kinda the whole point of that particular risotto.

  10. Could a kind soul, please email me or post on this site the complete (veges, dessert, greens etc) 30-minute meal by Jamie Oliver – Fish Tray Bake.
    I cannot find it on any website.
    Thank you

  11. Maris – I’d suggest you just check the official Jamie’s 30 Minute Meals website. Sometimes the official recipes are posted there. I don’t like to post the whole recipes myself since I think it’s worth people getting the whole book.

  12. We had a go at this recipe this evening as our opening shot at the 30 minute meals. Mark did the cooking and I think it took him more like 50 minutes, but the results were worth it! My kids both ate the risotto! The best part was that Suzanna (age 19 months) kept asking for more of the crisped up mushrooms and ended up finishing them off.

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