Miso Risotto

This is a recipe I concocted in an attempt to create fusion food. I'd been wanting to try making a mushroom risotto but thought of using shitake mushrooms. Seeing how shitake mushrooms aren't exactly Italian fare, I thought why not go one step further and use miso soup as a base instead of vegetable stock?

Ingredients

1 leek, halved lengthwise and sliced.
35g dried shitake mushrooms, sliced (see note below)
100g enoki mushrooms, ends cut off and clumps separated
400g fish fillets, sliced thickly (approx 1 inch thick)
1 handful dried seaweed
7 tablespoons japanese soyabean paste
6 cups water
1 cup arborio rice

Method:

1. In a saucepan, add the soyabean paste to the water and bring to the boil. Reduce the heat once the mixture has boiled.
   
2. Add the dried seaweed into the hot soup.
   
3. In pot, stirfry the leek with olive oil until softened.
4. Add the arborio rice and stir until the rice is mostly translucent.
   
5. Add a ladleful of the soup into the pot of rice and stir in until most of the liquid is absorbed.
6. Repeat the above until the rice has softened but still has a bite to it.
   
7. Add the mushrooms and fish into the pot, and another ladleful of the soup. Cook until the soup has been absorbed and the fish has been cooked through.
   

Tips:

Soak the dried shitake mushrooms in hot water for about ten minutes (or until it softens) before slicing it. You may use fresh shitake mushrooms - I just prefer the dried ones.

The brown soyabean paste is available from most Asian shops - it is made of soyabeans, salt and sometimes kelp or a bit of seafood. It is also the main ingredient for miso soup, so you might want to look for something labelled miso paste if you're unsure. If you cannot find the soyabean paste, you might consider using instant miso soup packets to make up the stock, but it is much cheaper to buy the soyabean paste.

I purposely made the soup quite strong tasting as I wanted the miso to be the base flavour of the risotto. If you're not a big fan of miso soup, you could reduce the amount of soyabean paste used by 1-2 tablespoons.

You could also consider using field mushrooms, or oyster mushrooms as well. Just make sure that the mushroom you choose is not particularly strong tasting because otherwise it might counteract the taste of the miso base.