One More Use For Maitakes

After writing about Maitakes, I received a few questions on how to prepare and use them.  I usually inspect them, rinse them if required and then break the "feathers" off of the central core.  The core often seems kind of fibrous, but you should be left with 80-85% of the mushroom in fans roughly the size of a quarter.  I usually just fry them up in a little olive oil or butter.

This time I decided to cook up a risotto with chicken, sweet onion and Maitakes

Ingredients:

2 cups Arborio Rice
6 cups broth (give or take)
1 medium Maitake mushroom
1 boneless skinless chicken breast - roughly 6-8 oz. cut into ¼” cubes
3 Tbs. diced sweet onion
3 Tbs. olive oil
Italian flatleaf parsley for garnish

I prepared the Maitakes, cut a small boneless, skinless chicken breast  into 1/4" cubes, and chopped the onion.  I sauteed the chicken, onion and mushrooms in 2 Tbs. of olive oil.   Once the chicken and mushrooms were lightly browned, I pushed the contents of the skillet to the edges, added another  Tbsp. of olive oil and toasted the Arborio rice. 

Once the rice was toasted I began adding broth 1/2 cup at a time and stiring until it was absorbed  (see post Risotto with Chanterelles, Pear and Proscuitto for more details on making risotto.)  As the rice cooked we seasoned it with a tsp. of fresh thyme leaves.  When the rice was nearly done, we seasoned to taste with salt ad fresh ground black pepper.  Serve garnished with Italian flat leaf parsley.