Roasted Pumpkin & Feta Risotto

[faffa_70]

Name of Recipe: Roasted Pumpkin & Feta Risotto

Number of People: 4-6

Ingredients:

Extra Virgin Olive Oil
500 g pumpkin peeled and cubed
Salt and pepper
175 g feta cheese, cubed
1 clove garlic
1 onion peeled and quartered
150 g bacon
350 g Arborio rice
100 g white wine
2 tablespoon vege stock concentrate
900 g water extra
approx 1 ˝ cups baby spinach leaves (or in my case a couple of handfuls!)
EVOO

Preparation:

Preheat oven to 200oC

Brush a baking dish with EVOO

Place pumpkin cubes to baking dish, brush cubes lightly with EVOO, then season with salt and pepper. Bake in preheated oven until golden brown.

When pumpkin is almost finished baking, put cubes of feta cheese on a baking sheet and place this sheet in the oven until the feta cubes begin to melt along their edges.

Place garlic and onion in bowl and chop on speed 5 for 5 seconds.

Add bacon and turbo once (or until you reach your desired size)

Add 50g Olive oil and sauté for 5 minutes, at 100oC on speed 1 + Reverse.

Add rice and wine. Sauté for 3 min, at 100oC on Reverse + soft speed.

Add vege stock concentrate and water and cook for 15 minutes at 100oC on Reverse + Soft Speed.

Add baby spinach leaves to bottom of Thermoserve bowl.

Use a fork to mash approximately half of the baked pumpkin and add to the Thermoserve bowl along with the spinach.

When Risotto is cooked pour into Thermoserve bowl and stir through spinach and pumpkin. Allow to rest for 5-10 minutes.

Serve risotto in bowls, and add remaining baked pumpkin cubes and warm feta to the top of each bowl just before serving.

members' comments

Katya - it was INCREDIBLE.   One of the most tasty dishes I've cooked in the TMX - the contrasting flavours were just wonderful and OH and I both were raving with every mouthful.   Definitely 5/5, possibly 6 
RECIPE TWEAKS
I didn't bother with steaming the squash first, just roasted it.  Some people may want to add slightly less stock as there is a lot of salt with the bacon and the feta.
I roasted the squash at the same time as cooking the rice.  The recipe calls for warm feta to be added at the end, so it may be better to roast it towards the end of the rice cooking time.
Thanks so much for posting this Faffa

Chelsea - This is a lovely risotto.  Thanks Kathryn!!!  For others who are making this dish - I had my pumpkin in baking for almost 10 minutes before I started making the risotto (chopping onion etc) and it was baked perfectly when the risotto was finished.

maddy - Yum Kathryn! First I dry roasted 50g pine nuts, for 4 minutes, varoma temp,  counterclock  soft......cap out.
I put that aside and added in 3/4 of it with the baby spinach once cooked, and some on top.
I only used 150g feta (still trying to get the family to eat it!), and used 1 tsp of TM stock.
Next time I'll hand chop the bacon......as I always over blitz on turbo!  Tongue

Snoozie - Yum! I only had long grain White rice so probably should've tasted before putting in serving as rice was still crunchy. Had nuke in microwave but still yum and will know better next time!!!

johnro - This was delicious Kathryn - thank you.  Made this for lunch today with the following tweaks

skipped steaming pumpkin and just roasted
added 1cm piece ginger with garlic and onion - used a red onion
added 1/3 cup parmesan cheese and 150g sun dried tomatoes and stirred thru in thermomserver

Served with lamb - so moreish!!!!!!!!!

foodiepep - I made this today at the tuckshop and it was fantastic.  Instead of using bacon I added 2 chicken breasts. Everyone that ate it asked for the recipe.

Lellyj - vegetarian version. Thanks for this--didn't miss the bacon!  Very nice! I just stirred through some crumbled ricotta (as I find the brand of fetta I have can be a bit bitter when baked) and also some rocket leaves just before serving rather than spinach.  Didn't steam the pumpkin, just oven baked.  Will definitely make again. Thank you! 

nicky74 - have made it several times now and it's different every time depending what I have in. Today I put zest of 1 lemon towards the end, also some cubed philadelphia cream cheese as had no feta and some broccolli florets. Didn't put in bacon or wine.
Added extra water though as I used about 100gr less rice and forgot to reduce the quantity of liquid, but think this helped cook the broccoli nicely in plenty of liquid and it was all still absorbed by the end of resting time. yum yum yum

Katya -  made this using beetroot instead of squash and it was wonderful and I'll definitely do it with beetroot again.   It was a pretty lurid shade of pink though .

courton - followed the recipe to the t... however, the Sunrise arboria rice was very much uncooked and the liquid was literally swimming on top. I had to cook it on the stove top for another 20 mins ... the end result, however, was delish. What went wrong I wonder? Also, there were burnt bits at the bottom of the TMX. Curious as to what I am not doing correctly?

JD - courton, it doesn't sound as if the speed was fast enough for your machine.  Soft speed on mine is far too slow so I never use under speed 1.  Some people use the butterfly when making risotto, maybe that would help move things around for you. I always check any meal I'm cooking to make sure it is moving, if is isn't, I up the speed until it does move (on reverse of course).
You can always stop the machine and give the contents a stir if all the liquid is floating on top - this may be enough to get things moving too.

Lellyj - In addition to Judy's infor, if you haven't cooked risotto in the tmx before you will be amazed at how much liquid is absorbed and how the rice keeps cooking in the tmx.  I went to a risotto cooking lesson years ago, pre-thermie and the chef cooked the rice by the absorbtion method, having it on low heat for a while, then turning it off with the lid on for a while--no stirring (can't remember times) and the rice certainly does soak up a fair bit of stock and soften up while resting.

courton - I made the recipe again tonight and it worked a treat...increased speed to 2 and put it on reverse...hope I can do this and it won't ruin the machine. Will not use aldi arborio rice though...very gluey! Ah well, first and last time I buy rice from aldi!!!

Tam - I served this at a dinner party - it was a HUGE success.
I used the butterfly attachment speed slow as I've had success with the EDC mushroom risotto and wanted it to work. I added fresh rosemary to the pumpkin before baking and toasted pine nuts on top. I didn't have any baby spinach but it certainly didn't lack any flavour.
Thanks for everyone's tips - I loved the bake feta.  I've never done this before and the aroma was AMAZING!!!!!
This dish is HIGHLY recommended. I added a good handful of parmesan to the risotto once added to the TM - I don't think the recipe calls for it as it has feta? Oh well, double the calories but double the yum!!!!!

Jamberie - This was delicious... We had to show great restraint in saving the leftovers.
At the start I dry roasted some pine nuts as Maddy suggested and  added parmesan at the end.
Will be making this one again for sure,  thanks for a great recipe Faffa

FlissPrideaux - This was fantastic !  I took the Thermomix away for the weekend and made this. Fabulous ! Definitely making this again !

[Thermomixer]

Thanks faffa_70 - roasted pumpkin is always good. 

[faffa_70]

there was a time before that I just wouldn't have bothered with the extra step of roasting but that has all changed now that the rest is so easy!!

This is the family fav at the moment and they asked if I had put it here (making sure they still have it if I fall off the planet maybe  )

[I Love Bimby!]

That looks delish faffa! Thanks 

[cookie1]

Yummy Kathryn. I make a pasta with exactly those ingredients so now I can add a risotto to my repertoire. In fact we may have it tomorrow night.
Thank you.

[CreamPuff63]

We do a very similar rissotto. Will pass on to DD (because she loves rissottos) and hopefully she will make it up  for moir to review

[Tebasile]

Hi Kathryn,

what a good idea with the feta cheese I have to try this next time. Why do you cook the pumpkin first ? I roast cubed butternut with lots of garlic in 20 min in the oven and add parmesan at the end.

[Katya]

I cooked this today and it was INCREDIBLE.   One of the most tasty dishes I've cooked in the TMX - the contrasting flavours were just wonderful and OH and I both were raving with every mouthful.   Definitely 5/5, possibly 6 

RECIPE TWEAKS

I didn't bother with steaming the squash first, just roasted it.  Some people may want to add slightly less stock as there is a lot of salt with the bacon and the feta

I roasted the squash at the same time as cooking the rice.  The recipe calls for warm feta to be added at the end, so it may be better to roast it towards the end of the rice cooking time.

Thanks so much for posting this Faffa

[faffa_70]

You are right about the salt Katya ... I forget about it as I don't add any to my stock as I use so much of it!!

[Chelsea (Thermie Groupie)]

This is a lovely risotto.  Thanks Kathryn!!! 

For others who are making this dish - I had my pumpkin in baking for almost 10 minutes before I started making the risotto (chopping onion etc) and it was baked perfectly when the risotto was finished. 

[Katya]

I made this last night (it is a regular favourite of ours) and it was so yummy I just wanted to bring it to the attention of newbies on here .....   

[lucky]

yummo!!
thanks for bumping!!
I wil be making this very soon, I've had my thermo two days

[NICKY 74]

yes thanks i am making my menu plan now for the week and i want to eat this right now!!!

[raven]

Am currently making this now! LOL But Im not going to bake the feta -  just the pumpkin and if I had thought about it would have added pine nuts! Yum cant wait to eat this!!

[faffa_70]

mmm pine nuts - why didn't I think of that!

The feta is really yummy baked