One-Pot Wonders

AMAZINGLY CREAMY RISOTTO WITH PEAS & GREENS

April 16, 2021
3
1 Ratings
  • Serves 4
Author Notes

This risotto will give you the same joy as a decadent creamy, cheesy risotto, but than without any cheese. It sounds almost impossible, but believe me, this risotto goes without very very well! Original recipe came from Gwyneth Paltrow's newest book: It's All Good (And it is..!)
Mirjam Leslie-Pringle

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Ingredients
  • 2 liters vegetable stock
  • 2 teaspoons extra virgin olive oil
  • 1 lemon
  • 1/2 onion, finely diced
  • 1 leek. white and light green parts only. Finely diced
  • 2 garlic cloves, finely minced
  • Leaves from 6 sprigs of thyme
  • Coarse sea salt
  • 2 cups risotto (or Arborio) rice
  • 2 cups spinach
  • 1 cup fresh or frozen peas
  • 1/4 roughly chopped fresh basil
  • Freshly ground pepper
Directions
  1. To make the vegetable stock, easily use 4 vegetable cubes with 2 litres of water. Set the pan on a back burner over low heat.
  2. Zest the lemon and set aside.
  3. Cut the lemon in half, juice it, and set aside as well.
  4. Heat the olive oil in a large, heavy pot and set over high heat.
  5. Cut the onion and leek and add to the olive oil. Turn over to medium heat, and cook until the vegetables begin to soften, about 5 minutes.
  6. Add the minced garlic and thyme with a big pinch of salt, and cook for another 2 minutes.
  7. Turn the heat to high, add the rice, the lemon juice and a good pinch of salt, and stir to combine all the ingredients.
  8. In the meanwhile, chop the spinach roughly.
  9. Cook until the lemon juice is almost totally absorbed by the rice, and than add a ladleful of stock.
  10. Continue in this manner until the rice is cooked through, and you have used all your stock. (about 20 min)
  11. Stir in the reserved lemon zest the spinach and the peas, the basil and lot’s of freshly ground pepper.
  12. Serve immediately!

See what other Food52ers are saying.

4 Reviews

gaspm9 November 14, 2021
This was delicious. I stirred through a tablespoon of butter and a handful of parmesan in at the end for extra flavour. I also added asparagus as another green.
I will be adding this to my regular rota! Yum!!
smasseff April 16, 2021
I have to admit, I'm with Jen L. on this one. When I made this a few nights ago it was a warm starchy mess no matter how much I seasoned it with herbs and salt — and I even used a homemade vegetable stock as well! I let it languish in my fridge for a few days unwilling to eat it again until I finally faced up to it. After sizzling some oyster mushrooms with thyme and smashed garlic I said "what the heck" and threw a heaping of the reserved risotto in the mushroom oil dredges...and holy heck did that do wonders. I deglazed the pot with some white wine, warmed it through, and added a healthy dash of dried shiitake mushroom powder to round it out.
Needless to say I scarfed down spoonfuls of the risotto with the crispy frizzled oyster mushrooms and thought to myself that this was definitely not the same dish. Perhaps there's something about the flavors melding together in the fridge? Or, just hot mushroom oil which is more likely...sorry Gwyneth I can only be so healthy.
At any rate, I would make this again but definitely serve it with a crunchy counterpart so as not to feel like I'm just eating a sloppy, starchy mess.
Jen L. November 20, 2017
This tastes like warm starchy nothing. No amount of seasoning will help this.
Don't waste your time, energy or rice.
Roxi December 18, 2017
I just made this and it’s very flavorful to me! I used a large lemon to zest and juice, and I added extra garlic and spinach because I didn’t have a leek. It was a hit at dinner tonight, even with the two year old and four year old!