Risotto

A well prepared risotto just may be the most rich and flavorful dish you may ever eat. Risotto is made with great care, braising the rice and allowing it to absorb the cooking liquid, usually broth. The special rice used in the preparation lends its starches to the cooking liquid, giving the risotto a rich consistency that in some ways resembles a heavy cream sauce. The actual braising of the rice is a standard procedure starting with the rice being toasted in a soffrito (chopped vegetables such as onion, garlic, carrots and celery), before broth is ladled in slowly.

What make each risotto unique are the local ingredients that give the dish its character.

• Risotto alla Milanese is arguably the most famous Italian rice dish, flavored with saffron and resembles Spanish paella, which makes sense due to the Spanish ruler ship over Milan for nearly two centuries.
• In Piedmonte it is not unusual to find risotto with truffles or made with red Barolo wine.
• In the Veneto and especially the city of Venice, seafood risotto is a mainstay, with risotto with sautéed eels being a Christmas tradition.
• Risotto is completely versatile, and goes just as well flavored with cuttlefish ink (Nero di Sepia) or with Prosciutto di San Danielle; with butter and Parmigiano-Reggiano (added just before serving - Risotto Mantecato) or with wildfowl like quail (Risotto con la Quaglie). Whatever ingredients used, the cooking technique will blend and smooth out all of the flavors into one incredibly flavorful dish.

The Technique

If you’re going to make risotto for the first time the first rule is don’t be scared, don’t panic! Follow these instructions, taken from Made in Italy, Food and Stories by Giorgio Locatelli.

First, have a pot of stock (usually chicken) boiling on the stove next to where you’ll be cooking your risotto.

You begin with the soffritto, which is the base of the risotto. Making this involves sautéing onions-and sometimes garlic-in butter (and sometimes half butter half olive oil). Usually, this is all, but if you are making a risotto with wild mushrooms, say, you might also add a few soaked dried porcini at this stage to enhance the flavor. Or, if you are making a risotto with robust ingredients, like sausage, you might add this to the base as well-but whatever ingredients you put in at this stage must be able to withstand 20 minutes or so of cooking at a very high temperature.

Next you have the tostatura, the “toasting” of the rice in this mixture so that every grain is coated and warmed up and will cook uniformly. At this point, you usually stir in a glass of wine and let it completely evaporate before beginning to add the hot stock.

Now you start adding your stock slowly (a ladleful at a time) and when each addition in almost absorbed, you add the next one, stirring almost continuously so that the heat is distributed through the mixture and you achieve the rubbing away and dissolving of the starch around the outside of the rice, without breaking the grains.

At some point during this time, unless you are making a risotto just with grana cheese, you will add your principal ingredient: seafood, wild mushrooms, asparagus, etc. The exact point at which you add it varies according to how delicate or sturdy the ingredient is, but most keep their flavor better if they are put in around two-thirds of the way through cooking the rice, rather than added to the base.

When the rice is ready, ie tender but still aldente, you need to rest the risotto-just for one minute-off the heat, and without stirring, to bring the temperature down, ready to accept the addition of cold butter and cheese, the final stage.

The last step is the mantecatura, the beating in of butter, cheese, etc. and which helps give the risotto its unique consistency. Then you are ready to serve-and the sooner it is eaten the better.