Aubergine and Mushroom Risotto

There’s one Italian food that I think is quite underrated in the rest of the world. It’s risotto. It isn’t bound to turn up in any Italian restaurant abroad, like pasta is, and it’s rare even in many of the fancier places. Yet although I don’t make it often, it’s absolutely incredible when I do make it. It’s one of those things that you only have every once in a while, but that when you do have, are amazing. 

Ingredients (serves 2)

• 200g your favorite kind of mushrooms, chopped
• 1 aubergine, peeled and diced
• 100ml soy yoghurt
• salt
• ground black pepper
• 2 tbsp margarine
• 3 tbsp olive oil
• 400g risotto rice
• 1/8th of an onion, diced

Preparation (20-25 minutes)

Boil about a litre of water in a kettle. Heat a pan on medium high heat and add the margarine and olive oil. Add the chopped mushrooms, and stir them around a bit. Add the diced aubergine. Stir around until  nicely blended with the mushrooms. Add some ground black pepper and some salt and stir around some more. Put a big pot on medium high heat and add some olive oil and the onions. Add the rice to the pot and stir around for 3-6 minutes. Now add the aubergines and mushrooms and stir it around for a while. Now slowly add about 200ml of water to the rice, and stir around until most of the water has evaporated. Keep adding water over and over until the rice is cooked to your liking (usually takes around 10-15 minutes). Stir around until all of the water has evaporated, then take the pot off the heat. Add the yoghurt and stir well until it has completely blended in.

Tip: risotto is the perfect leftover food, so if you feel like having a lazy meal sometime later in the week, it’s a great recipe to make too much of purposely. It also tastes fine when heated in a microwave, as opposed to pasta, which becomes pretty horrible.