£1 Wonders
By Jamie Oliver
45 mins
Not Too Tricky
serves 4
About the recipe
Comforting, delicious, this is a great recipe to have up your sleeve. I’m celebrating frozen mushrooms here, they’re cheaper than fresh and release loads of flavour when you defrost them, meaning mega umami for a fraction of the cost of fresh or dried.
Recipe From
Ingredients
1 x 500g bag of frozen sliced mushrooms
1 vegetable stock cube
olive oil
3 cloves of garlic
1 teaspoon dried thyme
2 small onions
2 sticks of celery
½ a bunch of flat-leaf parsley (15g)
300g risotto rice
80g mature Cheddar cheese
Top Tip
LOVE YOUR LEFTOVERS
If you’ve got leftover fresh herbs, prolong their life by wrapping the stalks in damp kitchen paper and keep in the fridge. Alternatively, you could pound them up with a little salt and decant into ice-cube trays to use in soups, stews or pasta, or to flavour meat and fish.
Method
- Use a sharp knife to make a small hole in the bag of mushrooms and cook in the microwave on full power (800W) for 2 minutes, or until defrosted. Boil the kettle.
- Pour 1 litre of boiling kettle water into a measuring jug and crumble in the stock cube, stirring until dissolved. Once the time’s up on the mushrooms, pour any liquid from the bag into the jug and give it a stir (this will give your stock depth of flavour).
- Place a large non-stick frying pan on a medium-high heat with 1 tablespoon of olive oil. Peel, finely slice and stir in the garlic for 2 minutes, or until lightly golden. Tip in the mushrooms, dried thyme and a pinch of sea salt and black pepper, and cook for 5 minutes, or until the mushrooms start to caramelise and any water has evaporated, stirring occasionally, then remove from the heat.
- Remove the contents of the pan to a board and finely chop half of the mushroom mixture, leaving the other half chunky and set aside.
- Peel the onions and finely chop with the celery. Return the pan to a medium-high heat with 1 tablespoon of oil. Stir in the onions and celery, then cover and cook for 5 minutes, or until softened.
- Tear off the leafy part of the parsley and set aside, then finely chop the stalks.
- Once the veg has softened, stir in the rice to toast for 2 minutes. Stir in the parsley stalks and finely chopped mushroom mix and cook for 1 minute, then pour in a ladle of stock and stir in a figure-of-eight motion until it’s all absorbed, popping the lid on every now and then for a couple of minutes to trap in the heat. Continue to add ladlefuls of stock until the rice is tender but still holding its shape – it should take around 15 minutes.
- Meanwhile, roughly chop the parsley leaves and pound them in a pestle and mortar with a pinch of salt and pepper until you have a bright green pulp. Muddle in 3 tablespoons of oil, then set aside.
- Remove the risotto from the heat, coarsely grate in most of the cheese (keeping a small handful aside for later), then stir in the reserved mushroom mixture. Cover the pan and leave to relax for 2 minutes until the risotto is creamy and oozy.
- Divide between plates, finely grate over the remaining cheese, drizzle over a little parsley oil and serve.
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