Findlay Market Part 2: Butternut Squash & Pancetta Risotto (full-recipe included)

Welcome back to Christina’s Kitchen!
Before we get started, I encourage you to check out my “Findlay Market Shopping Trip” video, where I shop at Cincinnati’s most iconic and historic market for this recipe’s ingredients.

This risotto recipe is the perfect comfort recipe to welcome the fall season. The toasted, savory, and rich flavors will make you want seconds in addition to wrapping up in a blanket! See printable recipe at www.Christinaskitchen.com/

Ingredients
1/3 lb pancetta diced small
8 tbsp butter
1 large shallot diced finely
6-8 leaves fresh sage chiffonade , or chopped
1 butternut squash (about 2-3 cups) diced medium
2.5 cups arborio rice
6 cups chicken stock
3/4 cup heavy whipping cream
1/2 cup parmigiano reggiano grated (you can also use parmesan)
salt to taste

Instructions
1. In a large pot over medium-high heat, rown pancetta, stir occasionally.
2. Add 4 tablespoons butter to the same pot before adding the diced shallots.
3. Stir occasionally until the shallots are soft and translucent.
4. Add arborio rice to the pot, allowing it to get toasted with a golden brown color on some of the grains. This helps boost the flavor of the dish.
5. Add 1/3 of the chicken stock and stir regularly, scraping the rice from the bottom to avoid sticking. Keep doing this until you’ve used all the chicken stock.
6. In a large sauté pan over medium heat, add the remaining butter. Cradle your heat and keep the pan moving to avoid burning the butter.
7. Add sage leaves and stir occasionally until the butter to get to a light-brown color. Add the butternut squash to the pan and cook it until it is softer but still with a slight crunch/bite. The squash will continue cooking once you add it to the risotto.
8. Add the butter, sage, and butternut squash to the risotto pot and stir.
9. Add heavy whipping cream and simmer for about 5-minutes. The risotto should be saucy. If it doesn’t have enough sauce, it will be dry and caky by the time it’s served.
10. Add the parmigiano-regiano cheese, stir.
11. Add salt to taste and stir.
Serve hot in a shallow, wide bowl. Dust with a bit more of grated cheese.

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Welcome back to Christina’s kitchen. Today we are going to be making a butternut squash and penetta risoto. First and foremost, we are going to start with our shallads. Got my trash bowl. You may use yellow onion. You may also use white onion. It’s just a little more pungent in flavor. See, we’re going to do a very fine dice. So, you leave with the tip of your knife. Don’t forget to do the claw. You’re going to cut to about 90% of the end of the shallot. Don’t work around anything. This makes it easier to chop your onion. It will shave many minutes off your cook time if you know how to properly dice or chop an onion. Okay. Now, I have peneta. Petta is an Italian bacon, if you will. It comes around. Shove that in our trash bowl. I do a trash bowl so that I don’t have to go back and forth from the trash can to here. Less trips. What I’m going to do, I would say an inch. Go ahead and put your palm down and then rotate. We don’t want any injuries. This is supposed to be a happy moment making risoto. Please be careful when you do this. Make the pile attainable. You don’t want to coring meat. You’ll see as I cut meat, I’m cutting with the back half of my knife. This is where I have more control and can apply more pressure to cut through the meat. Now, penetta is a cured meat. It’s basically an Italian bacon, but it’s not smokeoky. It’s simply cured. So, I’m going to throw these in the pot. We’re going to put it on mediumigh heat to start. That’ll help the sear begin. If the heat isn’t high enough, then the meat will cook in its liquid and almost steam versus if it’s not overcrowded and the heat is a little higher. It cooks off the liquid, which is what helps you get that sear. All right, let’s throw these in. Use the back of your knife. We don’t want them to get too close. Cool. Let’s go ahead and dice this. I always wash the skin of produce, even if I’m not going to eat the skin. Germs live on the skin. Dirt lives on the skin. And even though you’re not eating the skin, it can transfer from the skin to the flesh of the fruit or vegetable that you are using. So I like to always wash it. Watermelon, avocados. I like to get butternut squash with longer necks. Reason being the flesh is mainly here. The seeds are here. So, it’s easier to handle it and you get more out of it when it has a longer, wider neck. For the peeler, you will have to use a little more strength. You’ll have to go over it a couple times. Bada bing. Got that off. Yay. Do you hear that sizzle? Beautiful sound. I’m going to put that off to the side. I’m going to show you how to do the base. I’m going to scoop the seeds into my trash bowl. Butternut squash is very slippery. Its consistency is almost slimy, so you really have to have a grip on it. You’ll know what I’m talking about once you make this, if you don’t already. Use the base. Scoop all those out. and you can pull it toward you. This is why people buy pre-cut butternut squash. And if you do that, more power to you. Your time is important. And if you don’t want to waste it dealing with the base of a butternut squash, then you shouldn’t. This is good. This is what we want. But you will notice there isn’t much fat because penetta is more lean than your typical American bacon. So that is why I am also going to be adding butter. I was going to get away with risotto with no butter. I’m going to do four tablespoon. Throw it in there. Here we go. I’m actually going to throw the shallots in as well and let those get soft and translucent in the butter and the peneta fat. Going to throw the shallots in. Now the penetta is perfectly crisp as you see here. And I am going to leave it in there while the shallots soften. I’m going to reduce that heat slightly to medium low. Now, for this dish, I basically want the butternut squash to be small bite-sized pieces. I’m going to let you decide what that looks like for you. For me, it is about half an inch thick slices that I’m going to make into cubes. As such, they do not have to be perfect. If you want them to be perfect, they can be. We’ll make them a few different sizes. make a little surprise in every bite. They won’t know what’s what’s coming. But do you see how they keep sliding? You really have to be careful with that. Don’t say I didn’t tell you when you make this. See, there she goes. I’m coming for you. Going to wash you. This is why we have no shoes in the house rule. And I’m going to finish these up now. All right. My magic bowl arrived. Sometimes your hands are the best tool in the kitchen. Now we are going to toast our arbario rice. Look, it almost looks like a bowl of cheese, but it’s not. This looks amazing. Please look at this. Look at how the how soft and caramelized the onions are. Oh my. This is perfect. I’m actually really excited about this. It would have helped if I opened this earlier, but I didn’t because this isn’t a real cooking show one day. We’re going to put about two cups. Put it right in. Okay, now we are going to stir it. Going to let the rice get a little toasted. This doesn’t really do anything for the texture. It’s more for the flavor. I’m going to do another half cup. Is there anything worse than someone coming to your house and not feeling like they can eat what they actually want to eat? We all been there. You know what I’m saying? We’ve all been to that house. See how there’s golden brown color on that? This is what we want. Just enough on these grains that you’ll get the flavor. It’s go time. Let’s add the liquid. I have four cups of chicken stock. I’m going to add that in. I’m only going to add about a third of that in. And I’m going to stir. This is where risoto can be a bit laborious cuz you’re just going to keep stirring. Risoto is a short grain rice. This means it is thicker and starchier. So when you stir in the liquid, usually with rice you leave it be, but with pisoto, you’re supposed to stir it as the liquid cooks off so that it gets thicker and even creamier. It’s really starch, but creamier. We are also going to add a little bit of cream in the end, but that is the process, the very slow process. You’re basically brazing your rice cream and stirring it and then stirring it and then stirring it. This is the perfect time to crack your lid. And when I say crack your lid, I mean close it and leave a little crack open. I have these fresh sage leaves. Stack them. Ideally, look, let’s get these stems away. You never want to work around a bunch of junk. You want a clean station. I have to tell myself this every time I work with food. Just reminder, clean your space. Housekeeping. Okay, I’m going to use the back edge of my knife and push through to make chef anad. That’s what this is. Let’s see how our our bario rice is doing. Throw it in there. You want to do it soon enough that the flavors can melt together. See how thick it is? This is good. Let’s add more. Going to keep stirring. You will be rewarded in the end. What I’m going to do with the butternut squash is I’m actually going to put the other four tablespoons of butter into the pan and I’m going to create a brown butter for the butternut squash to cook in. This will ensure the texture is what I want it to be instead of being a bunch of mush. I’ll show you what I mean. It would help if I turn the stove on, though. I’m going to make it at about medium high. Crank your fan. Trust me. Yellow. Going to toss the rest of the sage in the butter. And the butter is essentially going to fry the sage and make it crispy. Do you see how this is bubbling? This is great. We want to keep it moving. Movement prevents burning when you’re cooking. Unless you have it on high heat, then thoughts and prayers. But this is at medium high. And I am lifting the pan from the stove time to time. And I’m going to achieve a golden brown butter. That’s the goal. And the way we do that is to cradle our heat. What that means is we don’t keep the heat at one temperature the entire time. We watch how the butter is cooking and if it needs less heat, we rock the knob to lower the heat and vice versa. See how it’s getting brown right over there. That is why movement is important because otherwise that part would just get brown and then this part wouldn’t. Look how quickly it gets brown, though. Look at that. We add our butternut squash. Carefully add it to your pan. You do not want butter to splat anywhere. For one thing, it’s unsafe. And for another thing, it’s messy. And we all know how I feel about a mess. Don’t love it. The coolness from the butternut squash is going to bring down the temperature of the butter. I’m going to add the salt to the butternut squash. This helps draw out the liquid. Just gonna keep stirring. Risoto actually counts as a pasta even though it’s a rice. Fun fact. I want some of the sides to be golden brown. So, how do we get that seared? I’m going to put it up to medium and I’m going to let it be. So now you will see the golden brown tech color that I was talking about. That’s what we want. It’s the perfect consistency. You want it to still have a bite because once we throw it into the risoto, it’s going to keep cooking. So we don’t want it to be too mushy. And now that the liquid is starting to cook off, I’m going to add 3/4 a cup of heavy cream. And as I keep stirring, I’m now going to add some Parmesan cheese. Parmesan or Reiano. Just make sure that it is either finely shredded or grated so that it doesn’t clump. Make sure you’re stirring at the base of the pot so that it lifts the rice. And now I’m going to add the butternut squash. And I’m going to reduce the heat. You want to make sure that there’s enough liquid in it or sauce I should say by the time it’s finished because you don’t want it to be dry and cakey. Oh my gracious. Really good. Honestly, the only thing it needs now is salt. Two pinches of salt. Hefty pinches. You can always add, but you can’t remove. So, taste as you go when you’re making food. When you taste your risoto, you want it to have a bite. The Italian translation of al dente literally means to the tooth almost as if it sticks a little bit to your teeth. It has a bite to it. And that is this. It’s perfect. Let’s plate it. This is a perfect dish to welcome fall. Here we go. fresh parmesan cheese and we will garnish. Thank you so much for cooking with me in my kitchen. If you liked this, please like it and subscribe and share this recipe with someone you love.