What better way to celebrate tomato season than a risotto recipe that uses a lot of them! This risotto is delicious, vegetarian, can be made vegan and will even please the meat-eaters due to the rich flavours. The citrus edge to the green herb salsa is a wonderful counterpoint to the creamy rice and tomato and the chilli gives the dish some punch.
If you don’t want the oven on for an hour, you could cut down the cooking time by not pre-baking the tomatoes and just sticking everything in together. It’s a great recipe for almost zero food waste – the whole of the produce is used except for the papery garlic skins and a few mint stalks, and you can slice and freeze the rest of the lemon for future dishes.
Serves 4
Ingredients:
Tomato risotto
Approx 750g tomatoes, any type, cut in half or leave whole if cocktail / cherry
4 cloves garlic
3 tbsp red wine vinegar
1 chilli, finely chopped (optional)
600ml San Elk vegetable stock
400g arborio rice
Green Herb Salsa
1 bunch flat leaved parsley, including stalks
Handful of mint leaves
1 small garlic clove
30g grated parmesan (optional)
1 tbsp wild rocket pesto, or dairy free basil pesto
2 slices lemon (slice and freeze the rest)
100ml olive oil
Method
Place the tomatoes, garlic and chilli in a large baking dish, add salt and pepper and pour over the red wine vinegar and about 100ml of the stock. Bake for 30 minutes at 200C (180C fan-forced).
Smoosh the tomatoes and garlic with the back of a spoon to break them up a bit, season if necessary, and then add the arborio rice to the dish and stir into the tomatoes. Pour over the rest of the stock and return to the oven for another 30-35 minutes, until the rice is cooked. The arborio rice will retain some firmness even when cooked but should not be crunchy. Check on the rice at the 20 minute mark and give it a stir and add water if it looks like it’s dry.
While the risotto is cooking, add all the herb salsa ingredients to a food processer and blitz until smooth.
Spoon the risotto into pasta bowls and stir through a generous spoonful of the herb salsa. Finish with a drizzle of olive oil.