risotto

Ok, what's going on? You may ask. For the last few months of 2007, we were making things like quiche, and roasted beets, and lasagna. Nice, simple comfort foods. Now, it's 2008 and we did DUCK. And now RISOTTO. What's going on?

Well, what's going on is a "minor chord" here, as I try to explain that these dishes that no one makes, because they're too complex, and winds up eating in restaurants, at very high prices, are really extremely easy. I told my Italian teacher that I was going to blog risotto, and he looked at me and asked "do people really need to be told how to make THAT?'

Well, yes and no. As I hope this will explain, risotto is easy. It's absurdly easy. And it can be very inexpensive. And you can play with it as you like. And finally, as with so many foods, the myths that have grown up around this dish are like the forest that grew around Sleeping Beauty's palace: just a little perserverance, and they're gone.

To make risotto, you need four basic ingredients: fat, an onion, rice and a flavored liquid. EVERYTHING ELSE IS OPTIONAL!!!! The one I'm describing here is the most basic of basic risottos, sometimes called "risotto milanese," although it doesn't feel Milanese to me.

Let's start with fat. Risotto, again, for reasons I will never understand, is considered a NORTHERN Italian dish. That means butter, instead of olive oil. Okay, so let's use butter. No, wait. Let's use a mix. The reason for the mix is that this is a preparation that is done on the stove, and butter burns. Adding olive oil to the butter makes it harder to burn it. Let's take half and half - say two tablespoons of each.

Now, to the onion. It can be an onion, a leek, a handful of scallions, garlic greens, shallots, any kind of onion type vegetable you have around. Whatever you use, chop it as finely as you can. Don't turn it into paste, but do a nice, small chop as best as you can. Garlic is optional, and depending on what other options you put in the risotto, you may decide to add it, or not. Let's leave it out for now.

Turning to the rice, the one MUST is to use an Italian variety of rice. These varieties are short grain (you can tell if you compare one of them to a standard rice, or to basmati right away). Short rices have a fair amount of starch in them, and the grains stick together. This is a good thing when you're making risotto. The most common one is arborio, and this makes really good risotto. A grade up from that is carnaroli, and to my taste, it makes the best risotto. Nanno is considered the king of the Italian rices, but I think it makes a wimpy risotto. Start with arborio, because it's least expensive, and if you enjoy this process - and it's a very enjoyable process - move up to carnaroli. For enough to feed four people as a first course or a side dish, you'll need a good cup of this rice.

Finally, the liquid. This should be something that tastes good on its own. NEVER water. Traditional is broth. Chicken broth. But you can use beef broth, you can use fish stock, you can use wine, and you can use squid ink in combination with other things. Again, it depends on what else you're putting into the final product. For the one I'm explaining now, use chicken stock, or use a light vegetable stock. I'm not kidding when I say this: for the one cup of rice, you should have six cups of liquid ready. Put the pot with the liquid in it next to the burner where you're cooking the risotto, and keep the liquid hot. Have a ladle ready.

Okay, now we start cooking, and as the myths explode, I will tell you. Melt the butter into the olive oil, at a medium heat. When it's melted, add the onion element, and cook it very briefly, just until it begins to go translucent. Add the rice and stir it into the fat. Keep stirring. (they always forget to tell you this, but starch burns, so rice burns. Keep it moving). You WILL see a change in the color of the grains: they will go from translucent, to a white color. That's what you want. You've "toasted" the rice.

Now, we come to the part that everyone knows about risotto, and the reason why no one wants to do it. Get your ladle, and add a nice, heaping bowlful of liquid right into the rice. Stir. You'll see it steam up and disappear. When it does so, add some more. Keep doing this, and stirring, until the liquid doesn't disappear right away. It will probably take no more than four ladles of this. Lower your heat.

We are not going to bust the biggest myth of risotto making: how many recipes have you seen that say "stir constantly?" You don't have to. If you keep the heat low, and keep an eye on the liquid, once you've gotten through those 3 or 4 ladles, you're fine. You have to keep on adding liquid, and you add it when you can draw a line with your spoon, through the rice, and it doesn't flow back together again. Keep on doing this, until you've used up about four cups of the liquid. Then taste a few grains of the rice. Does it taste just a little harder than you want it to? If it does, then it's ready. If it's not, add more liquid until it gets to "just more than aldente." When you get there, turn off the heat, add one more half ladleful of broth, and let it sit. While it's sitting, you can gussy it up. For example, this is where you "Mount" the risotto" by adding a couple more tablespoons of butter, or olive oil. Also, now that the heat is off, you can stir in grated cheese.

And you're done. If you do a classic milanese, you will have crushed and stirred a nice sized teaspoon (I get extravagant and use a tablespoon) of saffron to the stock, and your finished product will be a beautiful golden color. Recipes talk about serving this immediately, and it really IS best eaten right away. But if you don't, that's fine too. It WILL keep. Just don't add the cheese until the last minute.

Different styles of risotto are characteristic of different regions. In Venice, for example, a proper risotto is supposed to be wet enough so that you can "form a wave" in your plate. In the south, it's much drier. You can make the pick and make it wetter, if you like, by adding more stock to the finished dish (the e xtra two cups are there, for that, or if you need more than the standard four cups to one cup of rice to get it soft enough. It does happen).

And there you are. Now you have a delicious new dish in your repertoire, that probably took you less than thirty minutes to do.

Actually, you now have a FAMILY of dishes, because you can play with this. You can add meat to risotto. If you do, I would add it ten minutes into the cooking of the rice, and then you would use beef stock, or a mix of beef stock and/or chicken stock, and red wine. You can also use ALL red wine, and make a stunning risotto. You can use fish stock, or clam juice, and then add fish at the very end of the cooking time. No cheese in this one, if you please, but put some chopped fennel fronds, or some dill, or something lovely and green and fresh at the end. You can use a vegetable. Here, when you put the vegetable in depends on how firm the vegetable is. For example, if you make my favorite squash blossom risotto, put them in at the end. They're very delicate. If you're using beets (golden beet risotto with chicken stock and cheese? Yes, thank you, I'll have a second portion), you would add them early, and in small cubes, so that they cook all the way through, and you WOULD add cheese. And so on and so forth. There are dessert risotti which, to be honest, I find vile. What's wrong with rice pudding? (and you CAN use this rice variety to make wonderful rice pudding). Stick to savories.

Risotto milanese is classically served with osso bucco, a dish we MAY get to, at some point, but I serve it sometimes just as it is, in a big bowl, for our dinner. As one of Guy's favorite vegetables is green peas, I will make a hybrid of a classic saffron risotto and a dish called "risibisi" (rice and peas. We'll do that one in the spring), by tossing a big handful of fresh (or, at this time of year, frozen), peas into the risotto at the end.

Have some fun. Make a risotto. And yes, you CAN use the leftovers. You may like the leftovers better. What do you do? You stir in an egg, a little more cheese, get a pan hot, and make rice fritters.

YUM