Pumpkin Risotto

I love risotto and I love pumpkin. I’m lucky enough to live in a region of Italy, Veneto, which made risotti one of its traditions. Today we’re making risotto with pumpkin, and to make it more ‘elevated’ we’re gonna roast some slices of speck, cut them in little strips and place them on top to add some smoked crunchiness to the dish.

You’ll love it!

Directions:

Prepare the vegetable broth by putting the onion, carrot and celery on half gallon of water with some salt and boil it at least for 15 minutes (1). Meanwhile remove green skin from the pumpkin (Goldilock’s note: In the U.S., this “pumpkin” is called “kabocha squash” and I found it at my local Trader Joe’s) (2) and then dice it in 0.4-0.5 inch cubes

1. Prepare the broth

2. Remove the peel

3. Cut in dice

(3) Meanwhile, place some oil to warm (4), clean (5) and grind the shallot (6), press the slice of garlic (7) and place everything in hot olive oil to fry until it becomes golden (8).

4. Warm the oil

5. Clean the shallot

6. Grind it

7. Smash the garlic

8. Fry them in the oil

Once the shallot becomes golden, remove the garlic, put the pumpking and fry everything for 2 minutes, before covering with the broth (9). With 0.5 inches dice size, pumpkin should cook in 20-25 minutes, so leave it cooking for the appropriate time depending from your rice cooking time. 3 minutes before time, toast the rice in a frying pan (since we’re mostly using vegetable, use dry toast) then add it to the pumpkin and let it cook. Add broth if it gets too dry.

Get the speck (10), fry it (11) in a pan until it gets crusty (12), then let it cool down and slice it into strips.

9. Cover with broth

10. Take the speck slices

11. Roast them

12. Let them cool down.

Once the rice is cooked and dense, add half strips of speck and remove it from the stove. Add the parmigiano and butter, and mix it until everything melts, then taste it if it needs more salt. Cover the pot with a lid for 2-3 minutes to rest.

Give it a second mix and plate, then add the remaining speck strips on top.

Add the remaining stripes of speck on top of the rice.

Happy Risotto with Pumpkin and speck.

Did you make it? How was it?

-B