Risotto with pumpkin

 

 

As a child, when I was living in a small and remote village in the South of Germany, eating pumpkin always felt as eating alien-food.

During my years here in Italy I begun to open my mind and taste new vegetables, including the pumpkin. At first I used it only in cakes but today I also use it to make a nice risotto. Risotto, which is the Italian way cooking rice, is a typical first course dish that is usually followed by fish or meat.

For a good Italian risotto, you need home-made stock that tastes better than the stock cubes you can buy.

You need a good rice, not parboiled obviously, maybe an Arborio rice or Baldo, a type of rice which grows about everywhere around the Mediterranean. We use Baldo brown rice. It's a little bit different using brown rice because the brown one will not release much amid that gives the rice a creamy texture. Instead, I use nutritional yeast just before serving.

In the original Italian receipt the pumpkin is cooked in the stock with the rice, but this way the pumpkin becomes a mash. I prefer vegetables "al dente", so I start with cutting about 250 gr. of pumpkin into little cubes and marinate them in a mix of olive-oil and curry powder. After an hour, the pumpkin cubes are ready to be fried in a large pan, that I will user for all my cooking actions. I fry the cubes until they have a golden colour. Then I pour the cubes on a plate.

Cut 100 gr. of smoked tofu un slices and fry the slices in the pan until they are crunchy. Pour the slices on another plate using  kitchen paper to absorb the oil in excess.

In the same pan, toast 500 gr. of rice in some olive-oil until the rice becomes translucent. Remember that you don't have to wash or rinse it before cooking.

Add a glass of good white wine. A good white wine is the wine you will combine with the meal you're preparing.

Once the wine is evaporated you can add the stock and the white part of a leek, cut in rings.

Keep the pan over low heat and add, a little a time, boiling broth so that it gets absorbed by the rice. It is not necessary to stir the rice.

After the rice is ready, add salt, pepper and, to underline the smoked taste, some Piment della Vera, a Spanish smoked paprika spices.

Add part of the pumpkin cubes, and half of the tofu stripes, cut in small pieces and stir all ingredients. At last, add  some parsley, the remaining  pumpkin, the tofu, and the nutritional yeast.