Tried & Tested | Pumpkin Risotto

Laura on 28 Oct 2014

Wine of the night | Howard Park Great Southern Riesling, 2011

Fancy dress may not be your thing, and trick-or-treaters might make you want to stay inside with the music on full volume in an attempt to avoid anyone knocking on your front door, but that doesn’t mean that you can’t enjoy the spooky festivities in your own way somehow. If you’re not a fan of face-paint and Frankenstein, then you can always get involved by testing out a warming, wintery pumpkin risotto recipe.

Pumpkin Risotto

A splash of wine never hurts a risotto, and what’s even better, is that the rest you can take your time with over dinner. I enjoyed a Howard Park Great Southern Riesling with mine, and even though it’s always a pleasure to have a chilled glass of wine while you’re steaming up the kitchen with a warm, homely dinner, this particular white; both dry and fruity, complimented the cumin infused pumpkin dish incredibly well too.

Now, normally I tend to go a tad off recipe because I enjoy adding my own little ideas for flavour enhancing, but having never cooked with pumpkin before, I decided to stick to the book. I did however make one addition; when roasting the pumpkin, I added a basting of coconut oil just to add one more subtle layer of flavour to the dish. The coconut ever so slightly infused the overall dish, without overpowering it, and made sure that the juiciness of the pumpkin remained intact.

Why not give this a go yourself whilst pumpkins are in season... You can even buy one or two more and have a go at carving some novelty designs just for fun.

Ingredients

1 small pumpkin

1 tbsp coconut oil
(plus some for basting)

2 garlic cloves

8 spring onions

25g butter

200g risotto rice

2 tsp ground cumin

1l hot vegetable stock,
(plus extra splash if needed)

small handful chopped coriander

Method

1. Heat oven to about 180C. Chop the pumpkin into quarters and remove the insides, keeping the seeds to one side until later. Baste the pumpkin in coconut oil, season with a little salt and pepper, place on a baking tray and roast for 30 minutes.

If you fancy topping your risotto with baked pumpkin seeds – boil them for 10 mins, then drain and pat them dry and place them in the oven with some salt, pepper, oil and paprika 15 mins before your risotto is ready. Shake them about a bit half way through to make sure they are browning evenly.

2. While the pumpkin is roasting, you can make the risotto. Crush the garlic with the flat edge of a large knife, then roughly chop into smaller pieces. Slice the spring onion into rings about ½ cm wide.

3. Heat 1 tbsp coconut oil with the butter in your pan over a medium heat – not too hot. Add the spring onions and garlic. Once the onions are soft but not getting brown, add the rice and cumin. Stir well to coat in the buttery mix for about 1 min.

4. Now add a ladle of stock, and a splash of white wine if you fancy, and stir every now and then until it has all disappeared into the rice. Carry on adding and stirring in a large splash of stock at a time, until you have used up all the stock – this will take about 20 mins.

5. Check the rice is cooked. If it isn’t, add a splash more stock, and carry on cooking for a bit. Once the rice is soft enough to eat, gently stir in the chopped coriander and roasted pumpkin.

If you’ve prepared your pumpkin seeds, sprinkle these on top to serve.