Wild Mushroom Risotto with Crispy Garlic
Photo: Zoshua Colah / Unsplash
A silky, deeply savoury risotto made creamy without butter or cheese: porcini stock, golden mixed mushrooms and a spoon of nutritional yeast, finished with crispy garlic chips and peppery rocket.
Servings
Ingredients
Nutrition
Per serving
Steps
Soak the porcini
Pour the boiling water over the dried in a bowl and leave for 15 minutes. Lift out the mushrooms, chop them, then strain the soaking liquid into the hot stock, leaving any grit in the bowl.
- 20g dried
- 250ml boiling water
- 1.2 litres hot stock
✅ Done when: porcini are soft and the liquid is dark brown
Make the crispy garlic
In a wide pan, fry the sliced garlic in the oil over low heat, stirring often, until pale golden. Lift onto kitchen paper straight away; it will crisp fully as it cools. Keep the garlic-flavoured oil in the pan.
- 2 cloves, thinly sliced garlic
- 2 tbsp olive oil
✅ Done when: garlic is pale golden (it darkens and crisps as it cools)
Brown the mushrooms
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Fry the rice
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Add the stock slowly
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Finish and serve
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Soak the porcini
Pour the boiling water over the dried in a bowl and leave for 15 minutes. Lift out the mushrooms, chop them, then strain the soaking liquid into the hot stock, leaving any grit in the bowl.
- 20g dried
- 250ml boiling water
- 1.2 litres hot stock
✅ Done when: porcini are soft and the liquid is dark brown
Make the crispy garlic
In a wide pan, fry the sliced garlic in the oil over low heat, stirring often, until pale golden. Lift onto kitchen paper straight away; it will crisp fully as it cools. Keep the garlic-flavoured oil in the pan.
- 2 cloves, thinly sliced garlic
- 2 tbsp olive oil
✅ Done when: garlic is pale golden (it darkens and crisps as it cools)
Brown the mushrooms
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Fry the rice
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Add the stock slowly
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Finish and serve
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The Story Behind the Dish
Rice has been grown in the flat, well-watered plains of the Po Valley since the 15th century, and northern Italians developed a unique way of cooking it: toasting the grains in fat, then adding hot stock gradually so that their starch turns the liquid creamy.
Risotto recipes appear in Italian cookbooks from the 19th century, and mushroom risotto — especially with porcini foraged in autumn forests — became one of the classic variations.
⭐ Why It's Famous
It shows that true creaminess comes from technique and starch, not from butter: stirring releases the rice's own starch into the stock.
💡 Fun Fact
Italy is the largest rice producer in Europe, and the varieties grown in the Po Valley around Vercelli, Novara and Pavia are bred specifically for risotto.
Lombardy and Piedmont, northern Italy
45.32°N, 8.42°E
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