Okay, so hear me out. Risotto is a spectacularly versatile dish and if you’re looking for a straightforward meal to master in 2022, this is it. Endless possibilities.
From Wikipedia:
Risotto is a northern Italian rice dish cooked with broth until it reaches a creamy consistency. The broth can be derived from meat, fish, or vegetables. Many types of risotto contain butter, onion, white wine, and parmesan cheese. It is one of the most common ways of cooking rice in Italy. Saffron was originally used for flavour and its signature yellow colour.
It is typically served as a first course or a side, but you can easily adapt risotto to be your entire meal. It can easily be adapted to be vegetarian, vegan, gluten-free and it travels well and keeps as leftovers well.
I have found there are three keys to great risotto:
You really need arborio (or another starchy variety) rice. Basmati and brown just don’t do it. And don’t wash it! You need the starch.
Get your stirring arm ready - risotto needs constant motion and attention once the game has begun, so it’s a great idea to prep everything before you get started. You won’t be able to ignore the simmering pot to chop something up, so it should all be ready and within reach.
Don’t rush it or yourself. You’re going to need a full hour to prep and make it, but it’s worth it. I’ve tried to make risotto in my Instant Pot to save time and while what came out was a passable rice sidedish, it lacked the depth and creamy intensity of stove-cooked risotto.
You can make up an awful lot of combinations of flavours and it’s a nice way to use up stuff in the fridge. There is generally always onions, garlic, leeks, or shallots, and you generally need a salty cheese (or cheez if you’d like). We like a variety of flavours and often select based on seasonality: asparagus, peas, mushrooms, butternut squash, saffron, lemon, sausage.
As mentioned, use arborio rice to make your risotto. Arborio is a particularly starchy short-grained rice that lends itself well to a nice texture. You use pre-warmed stock, added bit by bit, so that the rice can absorb every last little morsel. And you generally finish with parmesan cheese and hunks of butter.
In terms of equipment, I use a wooden spoon and a flat bottomed heavy pot. This way, if the stock splashes as I add it, every last bit is retained, and because the lid fits nicely. But I have also successfully cooked risotto in a skillet.
Recipe:
Here is a basic recipe. Remember that if you want to add some goodies into it, you’re going to want to wait till the end, unless their flavours will deepen the flavour of the risotto. So… peas? Wait till the end. Mushrooms? Cook those with the onions. Saffron? Bloom it and add it at the end.
Ingredients:
6 cups chicken or vegetable broth, warmed. This is important as each time you add in the broth, the mixture will cool slightly and then take time to get back up to a sizzle. By pre-warming the broth, this won’t happen.
3 tablespoons butter, plus 1-2 tablespoons to finish
1/2 cup finely chopped white onion - you can also replace this with leeks or shallots, and I frequently also add a few heads of minced garlic
2 cups dry, unwashed Arborio rice
1/2 cup white wine for deglazing (you can skip this, or use water or stock)
1/2 cup to 3/4 cup grated Parmesan
If you’re adding any other ingredients, like squash, saffron, sausage meat, walnuts, spinach, leeks, etc - make sure they are also prepped and ready.
Method:
Prepare all of your ingredients and have them ready and within reach.
In a flat bottomed, heavy pan over medium to medium low heat, melt 3 tablespoons of butter and saute the onions until they are soft and translucent, but monitor them to ensure they don’t crisp or brown too deeply. *If you’re adding ingredients that need cooking, like mushrooms, now is a good time to do that.
Add in the rice and stir well to coat with the butter.
Add in the wine to de-glaze the pan, stirring constantly to scrape up all the yummy bits on the bottom. Let cook until the rice has absorbed the wine.
Now the fun begins! Add the warmed broth in 1/2 cup at a time and keep stirring. Adjust your temperature so that it is always bubbling away, but nothing is burning. On my stove this is a solid medium but for some it may be more medium low. wait until each 1/2 cup of broth is absorbed before adding more.
Continue to add in 1/2 cups at a time, slowly, and constantly stirring. This will likely take you 25-30 minutes. Don’t rush it! When you reach about 5 1/2 cups worth of broth added in, check the rice for doneness. You may or may not need that last 1/2 cup - it depends on what else you’ve added in and you want to not make the finished product watery. The rice should be still slightly firm, but feel and taste cooked.
You can tell it’s more or less ready when you have added all of the broth and if you draw your wooden spoon across the bottom of the pot it stays parted for a moment. When it is done, remove from the heat, add the 1-2 tablespoons of butter and the grated cheese and stir well to combine. Serve piping hot and season with salt and pepper to taste.
And that’s it! If you’d like a deeper dive into the starch and science of risotto, check out J Kenji Lopez-Alt’s article over on Serious Eats where he also claims a better method (I still like mine more) and suggests mounting with cream (gasp!).