Pea and Pancetta Risotto

I was very encouraged by how you enjoyed my last video – thank you for all your lovely comments and emails – so I felt brave enough to do another one; in the kitchen this time! Unfortunately this hasn’t come out so well – I’m disappointed by the quality of the video (I think I need a new camcorder) and I didn’t zoom in for you to see what I was doing closely – but I hope you get the idea anyhow.

Pea and Pancetta Risotto

Ingredients
200g alborio rice
300g peas (weighed in their pods)
80g pancetta
1 shallot
A knob of butter
A splash of vermouth
1 ltr vegetable stock
A generous grating of parmesan cheese
Salt and black pepper

1. Heat the stock in a pan, ready to ladle into the risotto
2. Dice the pancetta and fry it in a dry pan over a medium heat until it’s cooked through. Remove it with a slotted spoon, leaving the fat that comes out it in the pan
3. Finely dice the shallot and add it to the pan, frying for a couple of minutes in the pancetta fat.
4. Add the rice and stir well, coating it in the fat, until it starts to turn translucent. Add a little butter if you need a little more fat.
5. Add the vermouth and stir for about 30 seconds while the alcohol sizzles and burns off.
6. Start adding the stock, one ladle-full at time, stirring continuously. Allow the rice to absorb each ladle-full before adding the next. Keep adding stock until the rice is ‘al-dente’, which means it isn’t totally soft all the way through but still has a bite in the middle, and the risotto has a sauce like consistency. Different rice absorbs different amounts of stock so you may need a little more or a little less. You can top up with water if you do need more.
7. Shell the peas and add them to the risotto along with the pancetta a few minutes before the end of the cooking time. Ensure the pancetta is heated through.
8. Take off the heat then season and stir in grated parmesan according to taste.

Serves 2