Seasonal local food recipe No.361 – Risotto with broad beans and mint
This fantastic risotto recipe is taken from chef David Eyre’s The Eagle Cookbook: Recipes from the Original Gastropub. We had it for our meal last night; Frank didn’t “shuck” the beans (take them out of their little grey sacs), he cooked the beans in the risotto and it still tasted great!
Serves 5-6 as a starter
Preparation time: 20 minutes
Cooking time: 30 minutes
Ingredients
3kg broad beans (400g podded and shucked weight)
2 litres vegetable or chicken stock
150g unsalted butter
2 onions, finely chopped
2 garlic cloves, finely chopped
300g Arborio rice
a glass of white wine
a bunch of mint, chopped
75g Parmesan cheese, finely grated
salt and freshly ground black pepper
Method
To shuck the beans drop the podded beans into a pan of boiling salted water and leave for about 30 seconds, then drain and cool them quickly under running cold water. Take a bean in one hand and aim it at a large bowl. Squeeze gently between your forefinger and thumb. The bean will pop out of the membrane and fall into the bowl in two neat halves.
Put the stock in a pan and bring it to simmering point. Gently heat 100g of the butter in a separate pan, add the onions and garlic with a little salt and fry until tender. Do not let them brown. Turn the heat up high and pour in the rice. Stir it with a wooden spoon for about half a minute, coating it with the butter; do not let it stick to the pan.
Add the wine and let it bubble fiercely for about a minute, stirring gently all the time. Reduce the heat and start to add the hot stock in stages. When the rice is done, remove from the heat, add the rest of the butter and cover the pan until it has melted. Stir in the broad beans and mint, then add the Parmesan and some seasoning. Serve immediately.
