Vegan mushroom risotto

What would you make for a bunch

Of non-vegans coming over to eat at your house? something that would impress and satisfy meat-eaters? well, my answer is this mushroom risotto.

I've made mushroom risotto on this channel before, but I think this one is better — yes, because it has these showy king trumpet mushrooms on top — but more importantly because the stock is based on dried mushrooms, a little handful per portion. In my experience, the more fragrant they are dry, the stronger the stock they'll make. For example, those porcini are way more intense than these shiitake, but that's probably due to the drying method rather than the species. You'll have to shop around and experiment. Try to find the strongest-tasting dried mushrooms that are also cheap. There's no point in paying top dollar for dried morels, or something. I've got some bay leaves — maybe they'll do something, I don't know.

Fill that up with water, I'd say at least two cups, 500mL per portion. Heat on high. A big pinch of salt per portion, bring that to a boil, reduce to a simmer, and in my experience most of the flavor is extracted within a half hour, though that'll depend on how thin the pieces are. I'll give this an hour, during which time I can think about the fresh mushrooms. If you want more interesting choices for fresh mushrooms here in the U.S., go to an Asian market. They usually have way cooler shrooms year-round. These are king trumpet mushrooms. These I will use to make a big, steak-like garnish for the rice.

Wash off any dirt if there is any. Unfortunately, the stems on these really tall, thick varieties tend to be pretty tough and woody. With the big ones, you gotta trim pretty far up from the mycelial end before the stem is tender again. You can feel it with your knife where it gets tender. Any trimmings without dirt I might as well throw in with my stock, though they won't do very much. Dry mushrooms are far stronger than fresh one, especially fresh mushrooms that you have not yet browned. I have a whole video explaining what make dried mushrooms so intense — it's in the description. These trimmed king trumpets I'll cut in half lengthwise to preserve their shape.

And this is extremely optional, but I'm going to score the cut sides — shallow slashes running in that direction, turn the mushroom 90 degrees and do it again. I'm going to marinate these mushrooms and maybe this scoring will allow more of the marinate the penetrate. I can't say for sure. What I can say is they'll look really segsy when cooked — like grill marks. Again, the assignment was come up with something vegan and impressive. Throw those in a bowl, coat them in some nice olive oil, pepper and salt, and then some balsamic vinegar. I'm using white balsamic, but anything will work. It's amazing how much of the vinegar the mushroom will absorb, so don't put a ton in there.

Note, this is not how you make the traditional Italian contorno of marinated mushrooms. To make those, you need to blanch the mushrooms in boiling water first. I tried making this risotto with blanched and unbalanced mushrooms and the unblanched ones sautéd up much nice — better browning, more tender texture.

I'm only using the biggest ones for my garnish.

The smaller ones I'll trim, slice and then put inside the risotto. Speaking of small, I've also got some fresh shimeji mushrooms, also known as beech mushrooms. They ship these attached to a big block of their mycelium, which is great, it keeps them fresh, but you have to trim it away, and note that it still has some of its substrate, the wood compost clinging to it. It'll take some work to get each of these stems trimmed to the point where they feel tender.

But, after I do that, I'll do nothing else. I won't cut these. By the time they cook and shrink they'll be the perfect scale for the inside of a risotto. They'll be tiny but they'll still look like mushrooms, which is nice. Post trimming, I've got like 400g, nearly a pound of fresh mushrooms per portion here, which may seem like a lot, but remember how much mushrooms shrink. Last bit of prep is to dice like one big shallot for every two portions. I'm doing two big, dinner-size portions here. And then I'll grab some garlic, which I'm just gonna crush and peel.

I'm not gonna chop this. I'm using it more subtly today. Now we just wait for the stock to finish. Might as well scan my grocery receipt with the sponsor of this video, Fetch Rewards. Fetch works with literally any retail receipt from any kind of store, even from this little independent Asian market where I got the mushrooms. I use the free Fetch app to take a picture of the receipt, hit submit, and then just for doing that, Fetch sends me some reward points back. Literally anything you buy can earn you points, including stuff you buy online. No paper receipt.

Just hit the eReceipt button and Fetch can scan your email inbox for eligible receipts. Immediately, I get points back for stuff I didn't even remember buying, like my monthly google drive storage charge. Once you've got at least 5,000 points you can redeem a reward, which is basically a gift card for pretty much any retailer you could think of — Amazon, restaurants — browse through the reward options, they're endless. You can even turn your points into cash cards. I'll donate these points to charity. You can get 5,000 points by following my link in the description. Use my code RAGUSEA and get 5,000 points when you scan your first receipt. 5,000 points with my link and code in the description — limited time offer.

Thank you, Fetch Rewards. Alright, these dried mushrooms have been simmering like 45 minutes, pretty much all the flavor is out. I'm straining these through a coffee filter to catch any bits of sand. Dried mushrooms can have that, but you can also just let the sand settle to the bottom and the pour off everything but the last little bit. The rehydrated mushrooms are edible, but very tough.

You'd need to slice them thinly and/or

Cook them a lot longer to get them soft.

All their flavor is in the stock

And i bought cheap ones so i have no trouble just throwing those on the compost.

This pot's already dirty so we might as well cook the risotto in here.

A little olive oil to fry the shallot over moderate heat. Get in there and cook for a minute until you can see the pieces starting to go soft. Standard risotto technique says don't let anything brown, but we're making a brown risotto, so it's fine. One little extra I'ma do is throw in a handful of mustard seeds. I'll let those fry for a second and they'll rehydrate as the rice cooks and develop a great texture. In goes half a cup, about a 100g of risotto rice per portion. I'm using arborio but lots of short grain rice is suitable for risotto. Just do not wash it — you need the free starch coat on the rice to thicken the stock, and you lose some of that thickening power if you toast the rice for too long — starch damage.

So just toast it for a minute for a little flavor and then deglaze. Traditionally the first dose of liquid is white wine. You don't have to use it. You could just use the mushroom stock with a little splash of that white balsamic vinegar added. Since this is a vegan recipe, I'll point out that most wine is not considered vegan. This brand is, because they do not use any animal proteins as clarifiers. In goes a good dose of the mushroom stock, at least enough to cover. You really don't have to add the liquid for risotto little by little.

The main reason to be conservative is you don't know how much liquid the rice will actually absorb. But it'll take at least this much, for sure. In a little pan I'll heat a bunch of olive oil to fry the fresh mushrooms. Medium-high heat will probably do it on my stove but every stove is different. You want enough heat to really brown the cut sides but not before the rest of the mushroom has cooked and softened up. Mushrooms contain a glucose polymer called chitin — it's very tough and indigestible, but it breaks down with cooking. Gotta stir the rice every now and then to make sure none of it is sticking to the bottom, which it will if you don't stir. I'll move these big king trumpets around and make sure that each of them is getting nice color on the cut side.

Look how beautiful that is. I told you the scoring would be segsy. Now I'm gonna drop in my crushed garlic and cook these the way that I might cook a steak. Get plenty of oil in the pan and use a spoon to baste the mushrooms in hot, garlicy fat. If you're down with dairy, I would use butter for this stage. Spoon basting like this is great for cooking something with a highly irregular shape. We couldn't possibly fry these mushrooms on all sides against a flat pan. When the rice is looking dry, add more stock.

Be more conservative than I just was.

You don't know how much liquid the

Rice is actually gonna take.

Lordie these mushrooms are gonna be good. When they've shrunk by a third, half at most, they're cooked. I'll just lift each one out to a plate. Remember, these are my garnish, which is why I'm being so precious with them. I'll also take out the garlic before it burns, which it will. That's why you leave the cloves whole — easy to pick out.

Next thing I'll throw in is my smaller king trumpets that I sliced. Toss those in the hot oil and give them some salt. The the big ones we seasoned in the marinade. Give those a couple minute head start and then I'll throw in the little beech mushrooms, which should only take a couple minutes. Get them coated in hot oil. Stir the risotto — give it some more stock if it's looking dry. It'd be nice to deglaze that pan with something, and I got my Courvoisier right here. I remembered to run off the flame this time.

Direct flame on a gas stove can ignite booze. I love mushrooms with any barrel-aged spirit, anything that gives you the flavor of wood. But you could certainly just use water, or more of your white wine. Everything's coated in a nice glaze so I'll turn off the heat and just save those for now. The rice has been cooking 15, 20 minutes. I'll taste it — it's still just a little crunchy, which means it's time to turn off the heat and stop. By the time we actually eat, the rice will be perfect. Time to stir in our smaller fresh mushrooms and all their juices.

Gorgeous. The risotto may look a little dry at this point. You can always add a little more water or whatever at the very end to get the texture you want. I'm keeping it dry at this stage because instead of fishing this with butter and parmesan cheese as traditional, I'm gonna finish it with vegan sour cream. This is the very best non-dairy alternative for enriching risotto. You get the additional fat that you'd get from the butter and you get the lactic acid tang that you'd get from the the cheese. The only problem is you need a lot of it and it brings more moisture than butter and cheese, so it's best to start with a risotto on the dry side before you stir this in — as much as you want to make it as rich as you want. I'm gonna tear in some fresh tarragon at the last minute.

I like tarragon and mushrooms, but thyme would be great, sage would be great, parsley. Maybe a little more of that cream. I am not vegan, and I did not miss the butter and cheese at all in this risotto. The vegan sour cream really does the business. Scoop that out — again, we've got two full-dinner-size portions here. Smooth out the top and then we can lay on our big mushroom steaks. They'l look great as is, but they'll shine more with a little oil on top and I'm using truffle oil. The Gordon Ramsays of this world turn up their noses at truffle oil because it usually isn't made with actual truffles, but I think it still taste really nice, and it's very strong.

Just a little at the end — cooking would destroy the truffle flavor, so you use it at the end. Like I said, I'm not a vegan, but to me that's still a very satisfying, impressive and meaty dinner — tons of meaty flavor from the dried mushroom stock, and meat texture from these king trumpet mushrooms. Cut them with a steak knife, you'll need it. Truthfully, when I make this again I'll make it with butter and cheese. But, you do you. And if you need to feed a whole dinner party full of people you can easily do that. Risotto is super scalable. Maybe just sauté the fresh mushrooms in advance to give you a little less to worry about as you're cooking the rice. Let me know what your guests think...