Green Risotto with Fresh Herbs

This is another recipe from Virtually Vegetarian. I've veganised it and it tastes great! Just make sure when you cook it you follow the recipe very closely. There are small details that make sure the risotto turns out as it should.

The original recipe uses herb juice and not herbs. However, not having something small enough to make herb juice I just used chopped herbs (although it was quite obvious that I should have spent more time chopping them finer). However, the smaller you can get the herbs the better so I would suggest that if you have a mortar and pestle that you squish the fresh herbs into a juice. Alternatively, you could blend the final bit of butter and the herbs together in a blender or food processor to get the smaller bits of herbs.

Green Risotto with Fresh Herbs

  

600ml vegetable stock

100g unsalted vegan butter

2 shallots, finely chopped

1 clove garlic, crushed

250g Aborio rice

90ml white wine

125g mixed herbs*

salt and pepper

Bring stock to the boil in a saucepan and keep it over a low heat to be added to the risotto.

Melt 40g of the butter in a pan and add the shallots and garlic and cook until tender. Add the rice and mix to coat it with the butter so it's nice and shiny. The add the until and cook until the wine has reduced its volume by half. Then add a ladelful of stock and stir until it is completely absorbed by the rice. Keep adding the stock like this (ladelful, stir, absorb, ladelful, stir, absorb etc) until it is all gone. This will take a while (1/2 hour).

The risotto should be loose but not sloppy and the rice should be tender but still had bite. If it becomes this before you run out of stock then don't add anymore. If it is still not at this point after you've run out of stock then just add ladelfuls of boiling water.

Once the rice is cooked add in the remaining butter and herbs and season to taste. 

* Parsley and basil were my choice. The recipe also suggests adding chevril to the mix. I have no idea what chevril is. See my comments at the start of the post about how to prepare the herbs.