Written by Rebecca Marrow.
There are plenty of reasons for choosing to eat vegetarian meals. Animal rights being the most selfless of these, but the fact that it is cheaper as well as being easier to master are probably the more realistic reasons that would encourage students to go meat-free.
To help make the transition, here is The Linc’s budget-friendly recipe for mushroom risotto that really does not take much time (or skill) in the kitchen.
Cooking time:
Between 20 – 40 minutes.
Ingredients:
Rice
Water (and lots of it)
Butter or oil
Mushrooms
Salt
Cheese (parmesan is preferable, but any other vegetarian cheese will do fine)
Method:
- Wash as many mushrooms as you would like in the risotto (usually around four or five small mushrooms) and slice them thinly.
- Add a chunk of butter or some oil to a frying pan and wait for it to heat up before adding the mushrooms and frying them for 2-3 minutes.
- As you are frying the mushrooms, fill the kettle with around 1.2 litres of water and boil it.
- When the mushrooms are fried and the kettle is boiled, add the rice and fry for a further 1-2 minutes.
- Sprinkle the rice and mushrooms with some salt.
- Add the water from the kettle and stir it into the rice and mushroom mixture. Be careful not to drown the rice – only add enough for the water to reach the same level as the rice in the pan.
- Wait for the rice to soak up completely, and repeat the process until the rice has gone soft and sticks together (if in doubt, grab a fork and try a bit to make sure).
- When the rice is cooked, add a small chunk of butter and grate some cheese over the top.
- Finally stir in the rice and cheese and serve straight away, and voila you are done!