Risotto Unveiled

(c) A Chica Bakes

Risotto is the kind of mystery food that one generally orders at a restaurant, commenting on the complicated flavors while eschewing the idea that it may share similarities with less complicated fare like macaroni and cheese. It’s an “eating out” dish, if you will. A dish for which the secret to successful execution is carefully guarded by a society of elderly Italian women in a region outside of Naples that is only safe to travel to with mob protection.

I lived under this impression for years. I was happy in this bubble.

Then, a few months ago, a friend and I were broke, hungry, without much in the way of kitchenware, and sitting next to an unused box of arborio rice. Using a Claire Robinson recipe as an outline and adding a few flourishes along the way, our desperation drove us to unwittingly crack the mystery of risotto, and life has never been the same.

It turns out that risotto is not only makeable by layman like us, but is a great dish for the kitchen-limited. It requires a lot of attention but not much in the way of pots or pans, skills, or experience. All you’ll need to pull this recipe off is a small pot to heat the stock in, a large skillet, and something to stir with.

And what we turned out wasn’t just delicious, it was authentic. Italian grandmothers everywhere are…jealous? Impressed? Angry? Well, maybe not, but they are certainly on notice.

L and B’s Simple Mushroom Risotto
(an ingredients list, with measurements for you math-lovers, is below)

*We started by heating up about 5 cups of chicken broth.

*The recipe called for dried porcini mushrooms, but our local supermarket doesn’t have much in the way of selection so we purchased mixed mushrooms instead and used the stock to rehydrate them. It took about for 15 minutes.

*Then we diced an onion then sautéed it in a little butter until just before it started to brown.

*We put the onions aside, then added half a stick of butter to the pan.

*After the butter started to brown, we added a cup and a half of arborio rice to the butter and stirred until it got even browner.

*Neither of us were sure what stage of brownness we were ideally looking for, but at a certain point, once the brownness of the butter and rice was undeniable, we declared it ready and chopped and added our mushrooms, the onions we had sautéed earlier, and a tad more white wine than was suggested (lets say it wont hurt to add an extra ½ cup).

This is when the concoction began to smell good. We lowered the heat to a simmer and sat around patting ourselves on the back while the liquid cooked off.

Once the wine had completely cooked out, we began adding the chicken broth a ½ cup at a time, stirring continuously and allowing all the liquid to cook off fully before adding more.

Salt and Pepper were added. Mostly pepper.

*Once the rice grains were soft and we were out of chicken stock, we added parmesan cheese (in a completely unmeasured fashion), then continued to stir until we were so hungry we had to eat some. At that point, we decided it was probably done.

The recipe made about 4 hearty servings. B and I ate a million servings each, then put the rest into the fridge and reheated it later on the stove, adding a little extra liquid so it wouldn’t dry out.

Ingredients:
1 Onion
½ Stick of Butter (4 tbs.)
.5 – 1 oz. Dried Porcini or Mixed Mushrooms (you can use fresh)
1.5 cups Arborio Rice (dry)
5 cups of Chicken Broth
½ Cup White Wine
½ Cup Parmesan or Pecorino Romano Cheese
Salt and Pepper to Taste

Props to Claire Robinson for the original recipe.  And to B for being my partner in crime.