Umami Roasted Butternut Squash Risotto with Hot Honey Pepitas

Directions

1. Candied Pepitas: Place a piece of parchment onto a cookie sheet or tray.
2. Place pepitas, oil & hot honey in a small saute pan and set to low. Nuts burn quickly and so you don’t want to walk away. Let it come to a faint sizzle and just keep stirring the candied nut mixture until the pepitas have a little brown color on them. We don’t want to turn them completely brown. We just want to heat up the honey mixture, put some color on the nuts and allow them to release some of their oils. This will take less than 5 minutes.
3. Quickly pour the nuts onto the parchment paper and spread them into one close layer.
4. Sprinkle a little pinch of applewood smoked sea salt and a pinch of the powdered maple sugar over the warm nuts.
5. Set them to the side to allow the honey to harden.
6. Umami Roasted Squash: In a mixing bowl toss the diced butternut squash, the oil, the sweet & smoky umami, the roasted garlic & herb umami and salt & pepper to taste.
7. Place the squash on the other baking sheet and pop it inthe ovenfor about 20 minutes or so while you start to prepare the risotto.
8. When the timer for the squash goes off, you can start the broiler if you want to put a little more color on your squash (this is optional). If you decide to broil the squash, do not walk away from the oven, it takes about 2 minutes.
9. Once you are happy with the doneness of the squash, remove it from the oven and set it aside.
10. Umami Roasted Squash: Put the chicken stock in a saucepan and place over low heat so you can add hot stock into the rice.
11. In a dutch oven or a heavy pot, melt the butter until it starts to foam a tiny bit and you can start to see some brown flecks forming.
12. Toss the shallot and the rosemary in the butter and continue to cook letting that butter continue to brown and allowing the shallot to get translucent. Watch it carefully as we don’t want the butter to burn, but we want to get some nice brown flecks where all that nutty goodness comes from.
13. Add in the arborio rice and continue to cook the rice, shallot, butter, & rosemary together for another 3-5 minutes allowing the rice to get some caramelization.
14. If you are choosing to use wine, add that in and cook for about 2 minutes.
15. If you choose to only use stock, then add 2 ladles of stock to the risotto, along with 1 teaspoon of salt & some pepper to taste.
16. Continue to stir & simmer until stock is absorbed, 5-10 minutes
17. Continue to add the stock, 1-2 ladles at a time, continuing to stir every few minutes
18. You will continue this repetitive process until the rice is cooked through, but still al dente, roughly 30 minutes.
19. Turn off the heat and fold in 1 cup of parmesan and the umami roasted squash.
20. Break up the cooled candied pepitas and stir 1/2 into the risotto.
21. Top the risotto with extra parmesan and sprinkle with the rest of the pepitas.