Click image for larger version

Serves: 4
Prep time: 15 minutes

There are a couple of keys things you need to know when making a risotto. You need good ingredients, you must sweat your onions slowly in order to get the sweetness out of them, and you must stand over the risotto stirring continuously to get the starch to come out. A great sociable dish to make while nattering to your friends over a glass of wine.

1 tablespoon olive oil
4 Italian pork sausages with fennel, (if you can’t find them just use a high meat content sausage or gluten free one)
1 tablespoon butter
1 onion, finely chopped
3 cloves garlic, finely chopped
1 glass white wine
750ml hot chicken or vegetable stock
1 small head of spring greens, outer leaves and stalks removed, then finely sliced
100g Stilton cheese, crumbled
2 tablespoons oil
A handful sage leaves

Remove the sausages from their skins. Heat the oil and butter in a heavy bottomed pan and add the sausages to the pan, with a wooden spoon break them up so the sausages resemble small meatballs. It doesn’t matter if some of the sausages break up too much it simply adds to the whole texture. When they are browned remove from the pan with a slotted spoon and drain out any excess oil so there is only 1 tablespoon left in the pan.

Add the onions and fry over a lowish heat for 10 minutes or until the onions have softened. For the last minute of cooking add the garlic to the pan.

Add the rice and stir for a minute or two to coat the grains of rice. Pour over the glass of wine and keep stirring while the wine is absorbed into the grain. Gradually ladle the hot stock into the risotto letting it absorb between each ladle. Keep stirring it too as this encourages the starch to come out which is what makes risotto have that creamy texture.

With your last 3 ladlefuls of stock add in the spring greens. The rice is ready when the grains are cooked but still have a little bite and the rice is loose but not soupy. Add in the Stilton, and watch the risotto become rich and velvety.

In a separate small frying pan, heat the oil. Add the sage leaves and fry for a minute or two until crisp. Serve the risotto with a scattering of sage leaves.