Butternut squash, pancetta & blue cheese risotto
Featuring a butternutty hack to save you time and oven power
She’s baaaaack! I can now sit at my laptop without fear of disc slippage, and better yet, I’ve made my return to the kitchen, so I’ve got something to write about that’s not my body catching up with my nana mentality. Hurrah!
Cooking the evening meal is such a key part of my routine and not doing it had me feeling out of whack. Plus, lying horizontal all day, thinking about my next meal all day, was making me a horrible recipient of other people’s food - I would have seasoned this more, oh you’re doing the potatoes like that, you didn’t want to use the aged cheddar? - and I’ve no doubt Alex is thrilled to be hanging up his apron.
Tonight I’m sharing one of my fave cheat codes for butternut squash risotto, which is to buy a fancy butternut squash soup and make that your base. It gives you a lovely saucy, creaminess and buckets of flavour without having to spend ages peeling, chopping, roasting and pureeing butternut squash. Add to that some salty, smokey pancetta and tangy blue cheese and you’ve got yourself a rather lovely, satisfying weeknight dinner with minimal fuss. Enjoy!
Serves 4
You'll need:
Butter
Olive oil
250g risotto rice
1 large white onion, diced
4 cloves of garlic, peeled and grated
1 large glass of white wine
50g cubed pancetta
500ml chicken stock
150g Parmesan
50g blue cheese
300g butternut squash soup (I used the Waitrose one, which also features tarragon)
Add a knob of butter and a generous drizzle of olive oil to a hot pan, then turn down the heat and sauté the diced onion with a touch of salt and pepper for 5-8 minutes. You want it to be soft but not brown. If the onion starts browning, turn down the heat. Then add the garlic and cook for a few minutes more - again, avoid letting it brown.
Next, in goes the risotto rice. If the pan is dry and the rice sticks too much, don't be afraid to loosen it up with olive oil or a little more butter. Stir every minute or so for 5 minutes or until the rice grains are translucent at the edges.
Turn the heat to medium. Add the wine, a glug at a time, and stir each one in properly. Let it absorb, then add another, stir and wait for it to be sucked up. Repeat until the wine is gone. Then, make some space in the middle of the pan and pour in the pancetta. I like to make a space so that it can crisp up a little against the pan rather than sort of cook/boil in amongst all the rice and excess liquid. It creates a nice porky oil that can then be stirred around the rest of the pan.
Once the pancetta is cooked, give everything a good stir and then add the chicken stock in a similar glug-by-glug fashion to the wine. This process should take 20 minutes and all you have to do is pour, notice the stock has been absorbed and almost continually stir.
Once all the stock has been absorbed add the Parmesan, stir well, then add the soup and combine. If the soup is particularly thick, add a little water.
Add the blue cheese 5 minutes before you serve, stirring it in well, along with a tablespoon of butter, which you should place in the centre and let melt with the lid / large plate covering the pan.
Serve with a little more blue cheese if you want, any fresh herbs you've got knocking about - think tarragon, rosemary, parsley - and a load of fresh cracked black pepper. I like a drizzle of something at the end too - truffle oil, chilli oil or just plain ol' olive oil if it's good quality.