Jamie Cooks Spring
By Jamie Oliver
Spinach & goat's cheese risotto
Oozy, tangy & delicious
40 mins
Not Too Tricky
serves 4
About the recipe
A beautifully silky risotto bianco (or white risotto) is the grandmother of all risottos and the perfect base to celebrate gorgeous spring veg at its best. It allows you to build different flavours, whether that’s from little popping spring peas, asparagus or broad beans, or in this case gorgeous leafy spinach, which I’m pairing with the tang of goat’s cheese.
Recipe From
Ingredients
1.2 litres quality chicken stock
2 small onions
1 celery heart
olive oil
300g risotto rice
125ml dry white wine
300g baby spinach
60g Parmesan cheese
1 knob of unsalted butter
50g soft goat’s cheese
extra virgin olive oil
Top Tip
Swap in veg stock and vegetarian hard cheese to make this vegetarian.
Method
- Pour the stock into a small pan and simmer on a low heat.
- Peel the onion and finely chop with the celery, reserving any nice yellow leaves, then place in a large, high-sided pan on a medium heat with 1 tablespoon of olive oil. Cook for 10 minutes, or until softened but not coloured, stirring occasionally, then stir in the rice to toast for 2 minutes.
- Pour in the wine and stir until absorbed. Add a ladleful of stock, stirring constantly until it's been fully absorbed before adding another. Continue to add ladlefuls of stock until the rice is tender but still holding its shape – it should take around 17 minutes.
- Keeping a few nice leaves for garnish, put the rest of the spinach into a blender with 3 to 4 ladlefuls of stock and blitz until you have a super-smooth, vibrant green sauce.
- Take the risotto off the heat and coarsely grate in most of the Parmesan, then stir in the blitzed spinach. Cover the pan and leave to relax for 2 minutes, or until the risotto is creamy and oozy, then season to perfection.
- To serve, ladle into shallow bowls and dot with the butter. Crumble over the goat’s cheese, pick over a few baby spinach leaves, and finish with the remaining Parmesan.
Put the onion trimmings into the stock pan with any herb stalks you have – thyme, mint or rosemary would work well.
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