One of my favourite cuisines to both cook and eat has to be Italian and I’ll take any chance I can get to learn from the experts. I recently picked up some great tips for cooking the perfect risotto from celebrity chef Gennaro Contaldo. Both his tips and his recipe for pumpkin risotto were too good not to share so I’ve made a short video from my morning with Gennaro and here’s the recipe itself, just in time for Halloween.
Risotto All Zucca (Pumpkin Risotto)
Ingredients
- 300 g pumpkin clean weight cubed
- 300 g Carnaroli rice
- 1.5 litres vegetable stock kept hot
- 60 ml white wine
- 60 g parmesan cheese freshly grated and extra to serve
- 40 g butter
- 3 tbsp extra virgin olive oil
- 1 small onion finely chopped
- 1/2 celery stalk finely chopped
- 1/4 red chilli finely chopped
- 1 sprig of rosemary
Instructions
- Heat the oil in a saucepan and sweat the onion, celery, chilli and rosemary until the vegetables soften.
- Add the rice, stirring well to ensure that each one is coated in oil and lightly toasted for a couple of minutes.
- Add the wine, stirring all the time and allowing the wine to evaporate.
- Add the pumpkin cubes and stir.
- Immediately add a ladle of stock and stir.
- As the liquid is absorbed, add another ladle of stock and stir.
- Continue to do this for about 20 minutes until the rice is cooked ‘al dente’. Meaning it is slightly under cooked and still firm to the bite. (If you’d like to know why, watch the video).
- Remove from the pan from the heat and stir in the butter and parmesan.
- Serve immediately.
Notes
With thanks to Gennaro Contaldo of BBC1s ‘Saturday Kitchen’ and ‘Two Greedy Italian’s’ fame. He’s a brand ambassador for Citalia who hosted this event. Keep up-to-date with the latest stories and more authentic Italian recipes from Gennaro by visiting Citalia.com/Gennaro.
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Cooked it tonight and loved it, highly recommend
That’s great ,Annie! Glad you enjoyed it.
Looks fab, I have a huge butternut squash lurking in the kitchen at the moment so might have to try a slight variation and put it to use!
Sounds like fortuitous timing. Enjoy!
Love the idea of using pumpkin skins and other vegetable peelings in the stock. Many years ago I was waitressing my way through university at a fine dining restaurant, and everything went into the stock pot, which simmered away for days. Love risotto to eat and to make.
OMG this looks so yummy. I just checked and I have everything but the rice… I am going to make this – yum!!!
Excellent. It’s as yummy as it looks 🙂
Wonderful recipe,! I made it last night, so good!
Excellent. So glad you enjoyed it. Thanks for letting me know!