Deli Risotto

The key to this risotto is have a lot of different types of cured sausage. Pay a visit to your local Polish delicatessen to pick up a good selection of them – the more types, the better. If you can’t get Polish, get some chorizo or similar. Make sure they’re all cured – don’t get raw sausages. Chop them all into little cubes (1cm or less), mix them all together, and freeze whatever’s left.

Make sure you use enough butter. Don’t be afraid of it, butter is both an essential part of the flavour and necessary for the recipe to work.

Serves: 2 (scale up as needed)
Takes: 2 hours

You will need

  • 300g of mixed cubed sausages.
  • Handful of risotto rice
  • Handful of pearl barley
  • Handful of pine nuts
  • 2 chopped onions
  • A little garlic
  • Porcini mushrooms
  • A glass of rosé wine
  • Chicken stock
  • Olive oil
  • Plenty of butter
  • Parmesan cheese
  • A big frying pan
  • A sieve and big bowl, of similar size

If you don’t have pearl barley, you can use double the rice instead.

If the mushrooms are dried, soften them in hot water first and add that to the stock.

Preparation

Put a sieve on top of a bowl. Melt a generous knob of butter atop a dab of olive oil in a frying pan (this stops the butter burning), on a medium heat. Fry the cubed sausages, then transfer them to the sieve. Let the flavoured oil drip down into the bowl, then pour it back into the frying pan.

Fry the onions in the same oil. Give them enough time to soften. Add the rice, barley and pine nuts and fry for just a minute or two, stirring regularly.

Pour in a glass of wine. Turn the heat down low, add the mushrooms, and stir it all together. Let it simmer gradually until the liquid is nearly gone. Add a cup or stock and repeat. Keep going until you’ve used up nearly all the stock. Don’t let it get too wet or too dry, just keep adding the liquid gradually.

Add the fried sausages, some parmesan and the last of the stock. Turn the head up to medium and reduce until there’s no liquid. Serve with more cheese.