Pumpkin Risotto with Old Groendal, Sage and Toasted Pine Nuts

A good pumpkin risotto is one of the great comforts of autumn. Rich and creamy, yet wonderfully simple, it makes a perfect supper for a chilly evening and a rather lovely way to make use of seasonal squash.

In this version, some of the roasted pumpkin is blended into a smooth purée and stirred through the risotto, giving it a beautiful golden colour and a silky texture. The rest is folded through in soft chunks, so that each spoonful has both the richness of the purée and the sweetness of roasted pieces of pumpkin.

Finished with toasted pine nuts, fried sage and generous shavings of Old Groendal, it makes a particularly handsome autumn dish.

Choosing your cheese

For this recipe, we recommend a mature, crystalline Gouda-style cheese.

These cheeses have the depth and sweetness to stand up beautifully to pumpkin, with notes of caramel, browned butter and toasted nuts that feel especially at home in autumn dishes. Their slightly crumbly, crystalline texture also works well both stirred through a hot risotto and shaved over the top at the end.

Paxton's top pick: Old Groendal

Old Groendal is a beautifully mature Gouda-style cheese with a firm, crystalline texture and deep, savoury sweetness. Its flavour has notes of caramel and butterscotch, balanced by a gentle saltiness that works wonderfully with sweet roast pumpkin.

Here, some is finely grated and stirred through the risotto for richness, while a few generous shavings are scattered on top before serving.

Ingredients

Serves 4 | Preparation: 20 minutes | Cooking: 45–50 minutes

• 700g prepared pumpkin or winter squash

• 2 tablespoons olive oil

• 1 small onion, finely chopped

• 2 garlic cloves, finely chopped

• 300g risotto rice, such as Arborio or Carnaroli

• 100ml dry white wine

• approximately 1 litre hot vegetable stock

• 75g Old Groendal, finely grated, plus extra for shaving over

• 25g butter

• 25g pine nuts

• 8–10 sage leaves

• Sea salt and freshly ground black pepper

Method

1. Roast the pumpkin. Preheat the oven to 200°C fan. Cut the pumpkin into bite-sized chunks and place on a baking tray. Drizzle with 1 tablespoon of the olive oil, season with salt and pepper, and toss to coat. Roast for 30–35 minutes, turning once, until tender and beginning to colour at the edges.

2. Make the pumpkin purée. Once the pumpkin is roasted, set aside roughly one third of it to keep as chunks for folding through later. Place the remaining two thirds in a blender or food processor with a splash of the hot stock and blend until smooth. Set aside.

3. Start the risotto. Heat the remaining olive oil in a large, heavy-bottomed saucepan. Add the onion and cook gently for 8–10 minutes until soft and translucent. Stir in the garlic and cook for another minute.

4. Toast the rice. Add the risotto rice and stir for 1–2 minutes, so that each grain is coated in the oil. Pour in the white wine and let it bubble away until almost fully absorbed.

5. Cook the risotto. Add the hot stock a ladleful at a time, stirring regularly and allowing most of the liquid to be absorbed before adding the next. Continue for around 18–20 minutes, until the rice is tender but still has a little bite.

6. Add the pumpkin. Stir the pumpkin purée into the risotto, followed by the reserved roasted pumpkin chunks. Add a little more stock if needed. The risotto should be loose and creamy rather than stiff.

7. Finish with cheese. Remove the pan from the heat and stir in the butter and the finely grated Old Groendal. Taste and season with salt and freshly ground black pepper.

8. Prepare the garnish. While the risotto is finishing, toast the pine nuts in a dry frying pan over a medium heat until lightly golden. Tip them out and set aside. In the same pan, fry the sage leaves briefly in a little oil until crisp, then transfer to kitchen paper.

9. Serve. Spoon the risotto into warm bowls and finish with the toasted pine nuts, crispy sage leaves and generous shavings of Old Groendal.

Serve immediately.

Making the most of your squash

This is a lovely recipe for using up a good-sized squash after it has spent a week or two looking decorative in the kitchen.

If you're using a variety such as Crown Prince or Uchiki Kuri, you'll get particularly good sweetness and depth of flavour once roasted. Any leftover roasted pumpkin can be folded into pasta, stirred into soup or frozen for another day.

And if you happen to have any risotto left over, it can be chilled and turned into arancini the following day, though we suspect that may be optimistic.