Pumpkin Risotto with Crisp Sage

What you need

• Wide heavy pan
• Small saucepan for the stock
• Small frying pan
• Roasting tin

Ingredients

• 800 gpumpkin or butternut squash— peeled weight, cut into 2 cm cubes
• 2 tbspolive oil
• 1 (about 150 g)onion, very finely diced
• 320 grisotto rice— Carnaroli or Arborio
• 150 mldry white wine
• 40 gbutter— cold, for the finish and the sage
• 60 gParmesan, finely grated
• 16sage leaves
• 1.2 lvegetable stock— kept at a bare simmer

How to make it

1. 1

   Heat the oven to 200 °C. Toss half the pumpkin in the olive oil with salt and roast for 25 minutes until the edges are properly browned. Keep the other half raw and cut smaller — it goes into the rice and dissolves.

2. 2

   Keep the stock at a bare simmer in its own pan. Cold stock added to hot rice stops the cooking each time and is the single most common reason a risotto turns out chalky.

3. 3

   Soften the onion in a knob of the butter over low heat for 8 minutes without colouring, then add the rice and stir for 2 minutes until the grains look translucent at the edge with a white dot in the middle.

4. 4

   Pour in the wine and stir until it has gone. Add the smaller raw pumpkin cubes and then the stock, a ladle at a time, stirring and only adding more once the previous ladle has almost disappeared. It takes 18–20 minutes.

5. 5

   While it cooks, fry the sage leaves in the rest of the butter for 30 seconds until they go dark and crisp, and lift them out onto kitchen paper. Keep the sage butter.

6. 6

   When the rice is just tender with the faintest resistance left, take it off the heat, beat in the Parmesan and the sage butter hard, and let it sit for 2 minutes. It should spread slowly on the plate, not stand in a mound — loosen with a last splash of stock if it does. Fold through the roasted pumpkin and top with the crisp sage.

Per serving, roughly

Energy

~515 kcal

Protein

~13 g

Carbs

~72 g

Fat

~16 g

These are estimates calculated from standard ingredient values. Your numbers will shift with the exact products you buy and with how generously you fill the plate — oil, sauces and cheese move them the most.

Variations