Zucchini, pea and basil risotto with feta and sumac

This week’s volume is inspired by an Ottolenghi recipe for a zucchini and pea soup, which revitalized me last weekend from a pretty stiff hangover. Soup often turned out to be my convenience lunch during the past work-from-home months, and so it’s fair to say that I’ve nearly maxed out on my already shaky tolerance for it. This lil number, however, picked me up from a pretty dark place last Saturday, as my hungover-self and I were on our way to a Dutch herring party… Worrying frantically about the fierce-smelling-fish themed event ahead of me, I met up with some friends for a pre party brunch. This zucchini and pea soup, that one of them made, brought me back to life. Though the Prosecco skewing mimosas might have helped.

Soups are fun and all but risottos are much more fun. So here we go:

Ingredients #

Ingredients for 2

• 1 zucchini
• 200g peas
• A bunch of basil
• Chili flakes
• • 4 garlic cloves
• 1 shallot
• Olive oil
• 200g risotto rice
• (white wine, I forgot to buy this so had to make do without, but surely would be yum)
• 1.5 liter vegetable stock
• Parmesan cheese
• 1 lemon
• Butter
• 150g feta
• Sumac
• Salt
• Black pepper

Method #

1. Heat up some olive oil in a large heavy bottom pot, like a dutch oven, over medium high heat. Cut your zucchini in coins and add them to the oil with a few teaspoons of chili flakes (depending on how spicy you think is nicey) and a big generous pinch of salt.

2. Once the zucchini starts to brown and has lost some of its water add the peas, if you’re using frozen ones, just to defrost them. Once they’re heated up add the zucchini-pea mixture to a blender or food processor and blend it together with the basil into a smooth puree. Set aside for now.

3. In the same pot, or a different one if you feel strongly about washing as many dishes as possible, add some more olive oil. Finely mince a shallot and add it to the pot. In the meantime, mince the garlic and add once the shallot has softened.

4. Fry the garlic until fragrant, then add the rice to the pan and fry it together with the garlic and shallots, until the rice starts to become slightly translucent around the edges. (If you did buy wine you’d use it now, about a glass worth, to deglaze the pot)

5. In the meantime heat up the 1.5 litre of vegetable stock. Add one ladle of stock to the risotto at the time while stirring it, and wait with adding the next one until the liquid has been absorbed by the rice. You probably won’t need the 1.5 litre fully, but depending on how hot your stove runs and how large your ladle is, the best way to know if the risotto is getting there is to taste it. All the time. Lucky you.

6. Once you’ve slowly added stock until the risotto tastes lovely and al dente, stir through the zucchini/pea/basil mix. If you need a little more stock to loosen things up, do your thang. Risotto should have a flowy consistency, never a solid one.

7. Now you’ll want to grate a heaping mountain of parmesan cheese over your risotto, add a knob of butter and squeeze in the juice of the lemon. Give everything a last stir, grind some pepper over it, and taste if it needs any salt.

8. Add the risotto to the plates, top it with the feta and a sprinkle of sumac. Drizzle with olive oil and dig the frig in.

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