Mushroom and Leek Risotto with Chili Crisp

This light, healthy, vegan recipe makes for the perfect Valentine’s day dinner. On top of being a delicious risotto, you can show your love for your Valentine by making fresh vegetable stock, which gives this crowd pleasing rice recipe that extra oomph!

Serves 2

Prep time: 15 minutes

Cooking time: 45 minutes

Ingredients:

• 1 leek
• Approx 227g of mushrooms
• Approx 120g/ ½ cup of Arborio rice
• 2 tbsp cooking oil 
• Juice of half a lemon
• Salt, to taste
• 2 tbsp Hakka-ish Chili Crisp
• 1 tbsp of roasted pepitas

Method:

1. To start, prepare the vegetables. Trim the stalks off of the mushrooms and reserve. Cut the green end off of the leeks, roughly chop, and rinse well. Add the mushroom and leek trimmings to a pot with approx 2l of water and bring to a boil. Allow to simmer for around 30 minutes (making stock is very romantic). 
2. While the stock cooks, prep the rest of the vegetables. Cut the leek into quarters lengthwise, and then roughly dice. When diced, place in a colander and rinse well. Slice the mushrooms. 
3. Add half of the oil to the pan, and heat over a high heat. Add the mushrooms and leeks and a pinch of salt, and allow to cook for 3-4 minutes, until softened and slightly colored. Remove from the pan, and set aside. 
4. Add the remaining oil to the pan, and add the rice. Stir constantly, and allow the rice to toast for 1-2 minutes until it starts to color slightly, this really develops amazing flavor. 
5. When the rice is toasted, add a ladle of the strained stock at a time, stirring constantly, until the rice is almost completely dry. Repeat this step until the rice is just cooked slightly less than you’d like to eat it. You might need to add a little extra water if you run out of stock, depending on the rice, pan, temp etc, there’s no way of telling exactly how much liquid you’ll need, so just keep adding one ladle at a time until it’s done. 
6. Add the mushrooms and leeks, and add some more stock and the lemon juice until it’s the right consistency. You want to add enough so it’s just a little soupier than you’d like, it will have thickened up by the time you serve it. Taste and add a little salt if needed, remember that store bought stocks are very salty, and your very professional homemade stock didn’t have any, so you'll probably have to be quite liberal with the salt here.
7. To serve, place in bowls and garnish with the Hakka-ish, and the pepita’s.

Chefs note: Not sure what mushrooms to use? Seriously, use whichever you prefer, or what's available. We used cremini and shimeji mushrooms, but almost all varieties of mushrooms will work very well here. 

Prepping more veg for your meal? Save the trimmings and peels for your stock to boost the flavor even more.