Chanterelle Risotto (AKA Fancy Schmancy Rice-A-Roni)

Yes, I'm still eating the chanterelles. Yes, they are still awesome. 

I'll start this post with my siren photo.

See, now you can't look away. Nothing bad ever originates from a sauté pan with a pat of butter melting seductively inside it. I could add anything to this - brussel sprouts, bananas, old shoes - and it would all be delicious. What I actually made was Chanterelle Risotto, from Allrecipes.com. The few ingredients included:

2 tbsp. of butter (but you know this)

2 cloves of chopped fresh garlic

2 cups of sliced chanterelles

2 tbsp. of butter (yes, more)

2 cups of Arborio rice

5 cups of broth - I used chicken.

2 cups of grated parmesan

salt

pepper

Melt the butter over medium high heat, and then add the mushrooms and garlic until the mushrooms are browned. The recipe said three minutes, but mine took markedly longer to reduce most of the moisture out of the mushrooms. Some people don't like to wash mushrooms, as they can absorb a lot of water in the process. As these mushrooms came from the wild, they were very dirty, and definitely needed a bath before cooking. I rinsed them under running water and spun them in my salad spinner before chopping, but they still needed a longer pan time to brown. More on this later. 

The mushrooms went from this...

... to this. The heat drew out not only the added water from cleaning, but also all the water the mushrooms naturally hold. The volume was cut in at least half. 

Set the mushrooms aside and melt another two tablespoons of butter over medium heat in a new large saucepan. Stir in the rice for a few minutes, to soak up the butter and toast it a bit. Start adding the broth in slowly, 1/2 cup at a time, and continue to stir the rice so as not to burn it. When most of the liquid is absorbed, add another 1/2 cup broth. Repeat this process until the rice is tooth tender. This took about 5.5 cups of broth for me.

Once the rice is tender and creamy, stir in the mushroom/garlic mixture and heat through. Remove pan from heat and stir in parmesan.

Voila! That's it. In hindsight, I wished I'd added some kind of chopped vegetable to the mix. Broccoli or cauliflower would have been perfect, or even chopped spinach or kale. Nevertheless, it was fantastic and easy, too. And the best part? Plenty of leftovers for lunches later. Yum!