Mushroom Risotto

Risotto is very in right now.

No, I'm kidding, actually. It's just that I've only now discovered it. What with the white wine and octopus, I was inspired to make my own.

(Sidenote: most of the ingredients for this were procured on a trip the Little Italy/Jean-Talon area, among others the Milano Fruiterie. This is due for another post because it's too much intenseness to deal with here.)

My first reference for Italian cooking is always Marcella Hazan. She's a bit of a god. The first good and still the best person to write an Italian cookbook in English, she brought real Italian food, and some of its values to America. Thank you. She has lots to say about risotto, including that it's pretty unique. True enough. Every cuisine seems to use rice, from Morocco to Japan. Understandably, since it's one of the great things in life. But Italians have taken rice and made it risotto and made it their own; good thing too.

So. Risotti have a sort of fascinating basic mode d'emploi. First, sauté finely chopped onions and anything else solid that will flavour the risotto in butter (or olive oil--depends). Of course, some delicate things won't stand up to this and must be added at the end. Octopus is an example. In such a case, the brine or juices, etc, would be added at the beginning and the actual flesh a little before the rice finishes cooking.

Anyways. The rice must be short-grain, which is to say it must be cultivar destined for risotto. The popular, all-purpose variety is called Arborio, by far the most renowned. I'd no idea there even were any other suitable kinds of rice until Marcella told me so. (They are Carnaloni and Vialone Nano. Arborio is much easier to find.)Once you have all this rice stuff sorted out, proceed to sauté the rice with the onions and miscellany until the rice is thoroughly coated with delicious butter stuff.

The difficult part about this is the stirring. When they say stirring constantly, folks, they sure aren't kidding. Not only that, but a wooden spoon will not cut it. You need a firm spatula that's powerful, heat-resistant and can get that pan circumference where the rice will stick. You must keep the motion constantly; stirring, scraping, folding, and doing it fast as you can. Marcella says the bottom of the pan must be completely scraped every ten seconds. It is so, so true, but also kind of fun, so don't freak out.

So, after you've made the flavour base and added the rice, the time has come for the liquefaction. Or something. Risotti generally have beef/chicken/veal/whatever stock as their main liquid. Many have wine. Some have seafood juices, etc. The point is to give the rice soup some serious flavour.

Side note about stock: I was very wicked here and used bouillon. It's a total and complete cop-out, and I hang my head in culinary shame. But the risotto came out beautifully, so I think it's reasonable to think of it as means to an end. Next time I really will make stock, though. For anybody else, my experience was that bouillon is an acceptable substitute.

The catch about adding the liquid is that it must be added about a cup at a time, no more (although it's not necessary to measure--just eyeball it). Liquid. Stir madly until the rice has absorbed it all. Liquid. Stir madly until they it desoupifies completely. Liquid. And so on, until the desired texture has been achieved, depending if you want your risotto thick or thin, etc, etc.

A tip to make the stirring easier is to really add the next cup of liquid right after the rice has absorbed. As the dish progresses, stirring the rice without new stock makes it stick to the pan much faster and easier.

Okay, then. Say you've added all the liquid the recipe calls for, more or less, according to taste. You continue to cook the rice (um, I got a little exhausted, but that's the price to pay) for twenty more minutes approximately. Don't let up on the stirring! The same rigidity applies. Everywhere you go, they say the rice should be cooked slightly al dente. Cook it how you want it. The risotto will probably be better if it has a bit of a bite to the grain, preserving more of the dish's unique texture, but if you want it soupier, go ahead. Even more al dente? Fine. It's a matter of preference and various variables.

The final step is called mantecate. It's very simple: you simply take the pan off the heat (I used a dutch oven for its heat-conducting and heavy dutiness) and add some more butter and some grated parmesan. Cool to palatable and enjoy.

Remeber that there are more different risotti than you can possibly imagine. Some sound really weird and un-italian, but here are some ideas, just to give you an idea of the diversity: spinach & curried veal, red wine, lemon and pomegranate (okay, that sounds incredibly bizarre, I'm sorry, I'm sorry; I'm getting these off random sites), mushroom, asparagus, with raisins (?), sausages & leeks, basic tomato... I could go on forever. All of them will probably have their deliciousnesses. Try some out.

My risotto was excellent. I made it with a combination of shiitake and portobello mushrooms (the two together are supposed to resemble the flavour of porcini mushrooms, which I can't find) in the flavour base. Chicken stock, some dry white cooking wine, arborio rice. Yummy. It had a great texture (it might have been a tiny bit gummy, so more liquid next time) and was one of those things that's very very flavourful, although what flavour exactly it's difficult to say. Mushroom flavour, I suppose. Delicious. Try it yourself. Good luck!