Lancashire Cheese and Sun Dried Tomato Risotto
Serves 2 - 3
Lancashire is one of the best cheeses to use for cheese on toast. You’ll find the mild creamy qualities of Lancashire melt brilliantly with this robustly flavoured risotto!
Ingredients
- 1-2 tbsp olive oil or oil from the jar of tomatoes (see below)
- 1 onion, chopped
- 1 clove garlic, chopped
- 250g carnaroli risotto rice
- 1 chicken or vegetable stock cube
- 900ml boiling water
- 280g jar sun dried tomatoes in oil, drained and coarsely chopped
- 100g baby spinach, washed and ready to eat
- 100g Butlers Farmhouse Creamy Lancashire cheese, grated
- freshly ground black pepper
Method
- Heat the oil in a medium sized pan and after a few moments, add the onion and garlic. Cook over a medium heat for several minutes. Do not let the onion brown (it will make the risotto bitter).
- Add the rice to the pan and stir well.
- Crumble the stock cube into the boiling water and mix well.
- Gradually add a little stock to the rice mixture and cook until all the liquid is absorbed. Add another splash and repeat until you’ve used up all the stock. This takes about 20 minutes, until you are left with a lovely creamy coloured risotto.
- Add the chopped tomatoes and continue cooking, stirring, for a further 3-5 minutes.
- Remove the pan from the heat, stir in the spinach and cheese (the spinach quickly wilts down with the heat of the risotto) and season to taste with black pepper. Unless you like your food very salty, you won’t need to add any salt because sun dried tomatoes are salty anyway.
- Spoon into warm bowls and serve with extra cheese.
Tip: If you can’t find sun dried tomatoes in oil try using dry sun dried tomatoes. Simply snip the tomatoes into pieces and pour half the boiling water over them. Leave to soak (and rehydrate) while preparing the rest of the ingredients.
