Risotto Made Easy
I must admit DH and I are kind of creatures of habit. Coming up on about 15 years together, and 10 years of marriage, you can imagine that we have kind of a nice routine going on. One of those routines involves cooking (and eating) together.
We try to plan out our meals, and inevitably we have a roast chicken on the menu each week. In the winter it's a warming meal, sometimes made with stuffing, always perfect on a Sunday. In the summer the roast usually transforms into a whole bird flattened (aka spatchcocked) and grilled. And regardless of the season, we always use the leftover carcass to make a fresh stock to serve as a base for mid-week meals.
One of our favourite uses of stock is risotto. I was always a bit hesitant about risotto. It always seemed, well, complicated. I am not big into complicated food. I guess my hesitancy was also fuelled by an extremely complicated Georgio Locatelli risotto recipe I made a few summers ago. Locatelli is one of my favourite cooks and his book is simply beautiful, but boy oh boy, that risotto involved asparagus used three ways including a puree and I think that cemented in my head that all risotto was complicated.
But this winter I decided to deconstruct risotto. To make it again. And to make it uncomplicated. I learned that risotto is probably one of the simplest things to make. Sure, it takes time. Risotto is not a dish that makes itself - it requires the cook to be present, stirring and paying attention and using a little elbow grease. But it is not hard to make. And risotto offers a great opportunity to cook with someone - kind of like a team meal. And to use whatever is available in your refrigerator.
This is how we make risotto. I have tried to capture it step by step in photos.
We start with making a chicken stock, which I have also photographed. I realised last year that not everyone cooks whole chickens - two of my friends told me that they had never made a roast chicken when I served it for them. Roast chicken is easy to make and so is stock. Basically I just take the leftover chicken, strip off all the meat, cut up some celery, onions and carrots, melt some butter, and brown the vegetables and carcass in a pot for about 5 minutes, then add water to cover the chicken, and then leave to boil. Super easy.
Vegetables ready; Chicken in Pot; Veg and Chicken (browning 5 minutes)
Cover with water and simmer until ready to use
There are a few things that I have in my cupboard / fridge as standard cooking ingredients. I always have a pack of dried mushrooms, which I use in many risottos as a delicious base. And I also always have shallots in my fridge, which I soften in butter with the risotto rice.
To use the dried mushrooms, I take two handfuls, put into a bowl, and then cover with boiling water and leave for about 20 minutes to rehydrate. I drain the water into the risotto pan (the mushroom liquor is so good and not to be wasted!) and then chop and add the mushrooms.
Bag of mushrooms - two handfuls ready to rehydrate...
Covered in boiling water, 20 minutes later, ready to use!
And finally, we use whatever is in the fridge for the risotto ingredients. This winter I have used leftover roast chicken, green beans, and dried mushrooms to make a yummy roast chicken risotto. In these photos we just used the dried mushrooms and red peppers - if I had sausage meat I would have added it to this risotto as it would be perfect. In the summer I have used asparagus (including a super complicated Georgio Locatelli recipe), also broad beans, peas and mint make a lovely combo. In short, you can use anything in a risotto.
To make the risotto you start with coating the rice in melted butter and softening the shallots (see above). Then I add a glug of white wine and evaporate all of the wine out of the pan. Then I add the mushroom liquor (see above) and evaporate this too. Finally I ladle in stock, ladle by ladle, letting the liquid completely cook off and stirring continuously between ladles. I add stock until the rice is softened to taste, and at about 10 minutes before I estimate the cooking will be done I add the other ingredients.
Butter, risotto rice and shallots, coating all with butter, about 3 minutes
Add wine, cook off, add mushroom liquor, cook off, add mushrooms...
Ladle in the stock, simmer, stir, cook off, repeat...
Repeat until you get the consistency you want - but leave 10 minutes...
Add the ingredients (like peppers) that you want in final 10 minutes...
To finish the risotto at the end I add a knob of butter (about a tablespoon or two) and beat in vigorously (it makes a really gross glooping sucking sound) and then beat in a large handful of parmesan (making the same sound).
Finishing time! Beat in butter, and then parmesan
I dish out and then top with parsely or mint or a fresh herb (this is optional).
This is a meal that is all about time, tasting (to get the texture right), and is a lot of fun with two people (taking turns ladling and stirring, chatting over the stove, sharing the chopping jobs).
Total cooking time is about 35 to 40 minutes I estimate. This includes the stock time / mushroom rehydration time.
Of course, you don't need to cook it with wine, and also if you are a vegetarian a vegetable stock works just as well as chicken. If you use a ready made stock, I would suggest diluting it with an equal part of water as the stock flavour will be too strong I think for the risotto.
We enjoy our risotto with a glass of the same white wine we use in the cooking - never cooking with something we wouldn't drink.
Enjoy!
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