As autumn approaches, it brings delicious seasonal ingredients to our tables from colourful woodlands. On this occasion, we are going to make a dish with ingredients that we can find all year round but with that sweet autumnal touch provided by chestnuts.
Right now, it’s a lot easier to get hold of king prawns from a variety of countries or mushrooms grown all year round, not to mention ham, an essential product to have in the kitchen. In this case, the mushrooms that we are going to use are the Portobello variety and PDO Teruel ham, and we are going add one of autumn’s star turns, chestnuts.
Ingredients for 4 people:
- 400 g of rice, preferably carnaroli, arborio or maratelli variety. If you don’t have these varieties to hand, you can use any round rice in your pantry.
- A knob of butter.
- ½ onion.
- 10 chestnuts.
- 200 g pealed raw king prawns
- 150 g Portobello mushrooms (you can use normal mushrooms if you prefer)
- 1.2 l of chicken and ham stock.
- A glass of white wine
- 8 slices of PDO Teruel Ham, sliced by hand. If it is machine-cut, 4 slices cut in half will be enough. You can use any other type of ham as long as it has a smooth, not particularly salty flavour.
- A handful of powdered Parmesan cheese.
Preparation
Firstly, make a small cut in the chestnut skins and boil them for 10 minutes. After this time, remove the chestnuts and peel them completely, not only removing the harder shell on the outside but also the fine skin inside. Do to this, I recommend that you don’t let them cool entirely because this makes the task more difficult. When they are ready, cut them up into chunks and put them to one side.
Then, warm the stock without bringing it to the boil, although it should be hot enough so that, as you add it, it does not stop the rice from cooking.
In the pan where you are going to make the risotto, melt the butter and brown the well-chopped onion. As the onion becomes transparent, add the chestnuts and the mushrooms, previously washed and cut into quarters. When the mushrooms have loss some of their liquid, add the peeled prawns and salt to taste.
Once the prawns have begun to gain some colour, it’s time to add the rice and toast it slightly. Pour in the glass of white wine and start to stir.
The secret to a good risotto is to add the stock little by little so that the rice releases its starch and it takes on its characteristic texture, so when the wine has almost entirely evaporated, start to add the stock, ladle by ladle. Add a little and then stir it in. When it has evaporated, pour in the next ladle of stock, and so on until it has cooked for 18 minutes. It is important to take care that the rice does not dry out, as it would burn. Before taking it off the heat, sprinkle a little grated Parmesan on it to taste and mix in well.
Once on the plate, and whilst still hot, place a couple of slices of ham on each dish so that the fat melts into the rice.
We hope you like it.