Beetroot risotto

One of my most popular dishes is beetroot risotto. It's both the recipe that I get asked for most often, and the recipe that people go out of their way to tell me that they enjoyed making. Here's the (quite simple!) recipe so that you can enjoy it too!

This recipe serves two, and is especially good with some slices of pan-roasted duck breast on top. Yum.

Ingredients

• 1 beetroot
• 1 large carrot
• 1 small onion
• Half a celery stick
• 1 garlic clove
• 1 tbsp olive oil
• 100 g risotto rice
• 30 g Parmesan cheese
• Butter
• Fresh parsley
• Salt & pepper

Method

First, peel the beetroot and carrot, and cut them into 1 cubes. Put them in a saucepan with a pinch of salt and enough water to cover them, bring them to the boil, and let them simmer for about 20 minutes.

While they're cooking, finely chop the onion, garlic and celery. Heat the olive oil in a large frying pan, and saute the chopped vegetables gently in the olive oil until they're soft and translucent. Also, grate the Parmesan, chop the parsley, and boil a full kettle.

Once the beetroot and carrot are cooked, strain off the liquid into a jug and set the vegetables to one side.

Turn up the heat in the frying pan, and gently fry the rice with the onion, garlic and celery for 1–2 minutes. Then add a little of the stock from cooking the beetroot and carrot (that you saved earlier in a jug), and stir the rice until almost all the liquid has been absorbed. Repeat until you run out of liquid. Add the root vegetables into the pan, and continue to gradually add hot water (from the kettle) while gently stirring until the rice is cooked.

Take the risotto of the heat, and stir in the Parmesan, the parsley, and a knob of butter. Let it rest for a minute, and serve in bowles with some freshly-ground black pepper on top!