Sunday, November 25, 2007

Stilton squash risotto



1 tbsp vegetable oil
50g walnuts, roughly chopped
15g butter
1 onion, chopped
1 tbsp freshly chopped sage
400g arborio risotto rice
1 litre vegetable stock, boiling
225g winter squash, deseeded, peeled and roughly chopped
75g Blue Stilton cheese
4 sprigs fresh sage for garnish
Instructions
1 Heat the vegetable oil in a large saucepan, add half of the chopped walnuts and allow to brown. Spoon the nuts onto a plate and set aside.
2 Add the butter, onions and chopped sage to the pan and soften for 6-8 minutes.
3 Stir in the rice to absorb the cooking juices. Add the stock and the chopped squash, then simmer, uncovered, for 15 minutes.
4 Switch off the heat, crumble in the Stilton, add the remaining chopped walnuts, cover and allow to finish cooking in its own heat for 5 minutes.
Serve each portion garnished with a sprig of fresh sage.

I got a coupon for a free block of stilton, so I set about finding something interesting to do with it. It turns out that stilton cheese has an official website, it’s http://www.stiltoncheese.com/.

An official web site for a cheese, fabulous. I found this recipe on it. It calls it’s self a risotto, though I know that any risotto maker worth their salt would scoff at adding all the stock at once like that. Still, if you just think of it as a rice dish, then it won’t offend anyone’s sensibilities. Also it made it super easy and quick to make, and it was very tasty. The combination of the walnuts, squash and strong blue cheese, was really surprising, and good.

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