hugh's mushroom risoniotto

After last night's fairly late dinner, for one reason or another our plans for an early night are shot to shreds by the twin evils of Milo being under the weather, which means he didn't get up until after nine this morning, meaning he's rather awake tonight, the fact we need to go shopping and Ana's looming Ofsted inspection.

So whilst Ana gets down to revising the process handbook for the school she's only taught in for ten years, the boys are sent to Waitrose before it closes. The knock-on effect to all this malarky is that once Milo is in bed, it's almost half nine, we're both starving, and there's only one meal in our weekly recipe choice that is in any way relatively quick - Hugh's Mushroom Risoniotto, from his new Veg book.

Now technically this isn't an experimental dish as I had it whilst Ana was on the Isle of Wight recently, but as this is the first time she's had it, and since we've been online, I'm counting it as 'new'.

Interestingly for a second time running we've got no white wine to simmer the mushrooms in (this time because Ana has drunk all the cooking wine), so we have to make-do with red. It makes the finished dish smell, look and taste much closer to Bill Granger's beef stroganoff than a pasta risotto.

Vexingly Ana points out that it's also quite close to Nigel Slater's mushroom pappardelle, but obviously it's *much* better.

Wine Time
Hmm, this is a difficult one; It's quite creamy, whilst the mushrooms are fleshy and meaty. Now if we'd had a cooking white, I'd have gone for something like a zingy Sauv or a Chablis to cut through the creaminess. As it is, the combination of the 'shrooms and red wine beefs it up slightly, so I'd recommend a Pinot Noir or a similar low-tannin red.

sources
mushroom risoniotto - Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall, River Cottage Veg Everyday!, HFW, p258