Pumpkin Risotto with brown sage butter

This is a bowl of golden savoury rice pudding comfort food. When the first autumn pumpkin is cut open, risotto is always my go to. What’s yours? I’d love to hear what’s happening at your place in the comments below.

The pumpkins were weka-ravaged this year, full of huge peck marks which have healed over but they will not keep over the winter. The only one that wasn’t damaged was growing up a fence – will have to grow them all like that next year.

Ingredients

• 400g pumpkin, seeded, peeled and cut into bite sized chunks
• 1.5 cups milk
• 4.5 cups chicken or vegetable stock
• 2 tbsp oil
• 1 onion, cut into small pieces
• 1 clove garlic, minced
• 400 g (2 cups) aborio rice
• 50 g parmesan cheese, grated
• 100 g butter
• Sage leaves

Method

1. Put the pumpkin in a pot with the milk and simmer gently until the pumpkin is soft.
2. Heat the stock in another pot until boiling.
3. Meanwhile soften the onion and garlic in oil in a wide -bottomed pan, then add the rice and cook, stirring, until the rice becomes translucent.
4. Begin adding ladles of boiling stock, stirring all the while, not adding the next one until after the last has boiled away and been absorbed. Keep doing this, stirring all the while until all the stock has gone. This should take about 15 to 20 minutes.
5. Add the pumpkin and hot milk to the rice and keep stirring until that too has all been absorbed. It needs to be a soft consistency that will ooze onto the plate rather than dollop.
6. Stir through the cheese and half the butter. Put the lid on, take off the heat and let it sit for 5 or 10 minutes.  If it is too stiff at this point, boil the jug and stir a bit more boiling water through.
7. In a small pan heat the other half of the butter and fry the sage leaves until the butter turns nutty brown, but be careful not to burn it, quickly take it off the heat before it burns. Serve the risotto in bowls topped with the sage butter and a few sage leaves.

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