Pea and Ham Risotto with Goats Cheese

Pea and ham risotto, true comfort food heaven, wonderful flavours, and the simplest of old fashioned cooking techniques.

Sweet peas offer the high notes, the ham offers a wonderful meaty salty vibe and the delicious goat’s cheese provides the foundation flavour to build it all on.

Bacon and Pea Risotto.

I have waxed lyrical about the combination of core ingredients in this easy pea and ham risotto before.

Pea and ham just work together, whether they be in my pea and ham pasta or a classic pea and ham soup.

Ham and goat’s cheese feature in my peach and goat cheese salad with ham and I have a whole fresh fried goat’s cheese with pea puree.

They are flavours that just work and this recipe wraps them up in a soft and perfectly textured risotto.

Like all of my risotto recipes this is classically cooked at the stove.

Don’t worry, it is easy and you can even do it with a glass of wine in hand. In fact, it is the law that you must do it with a glass of plonk in hand!

How to Cook the Perfect Risotto.

Risotto is simultaneously the simplest dish and potentially the most complicated dish to cook.

The complexity is in its simplicity, your job is simple add stock little by little and stir.

At the start of the process you need to stir constantly once the first 2 or three ladles of stock have gone in just give it a good stir every 45-60 seconds.

But be there, and look after the risotto! Take some time, put everything else aside and pour and stir, and if wine is your thing have a sip or two!

Cooking the rice to the perfect texture should take around 25 minutes and temperature is key. You want a slight bubble.

Finally don’t forget to let it sit, this fixes up the final texture and is often over looked.

Once you have your technique on your stove you will be bashing out this pea and ham risotto, my mushroom risotto or smoked mackerel risotto in your sleep.

Frequently Asked Questions.

What type of ham should I use?

You should use something local and delicious! It would be easy to reel of a list of “famous” types of ham an bacon that will be imported on mass and vary in quality depending on where you are.

But realistically no matter where you live you will have some glorious local ham or bacon, speak to a butcher, they will point you in the right direction.

Do I have to use goat’s cheese?

No, not at all, this dish works well with Parmesan or Pecorino Cheese.

But do try and find some aged goat’s cheese. The salty acidic combination is genius with the ham and peas in this recipe.

Look for something like garrotxa and aged goat gouda or ardsallagh if you can. As with the ham you may find local producers doing interesting thongs too.

How much salt should I add?

I find that this dish needs no added salt. Between the goat’s cheese, ham and stock I find that there is enough saltiness to season the rice.

However taste as you are cooking and if you feel as though you add more add it to the stock.