MUSHROOM RISOTTO Makes 4 to 6 side dishes. By Dennis W. Viau; from an Italian cooking course recipe. You stay with risotto at the stove until it is ready to serve. Regular old grocery-store long grain rice goes in a pan with some water, bring to a boil, put the lid on, and then come back when it s done. Risotto uses Arborio rice, which yields the starch that gives risotto its creamy texture. Risotto also requires constant attention, stirring it for 20 minutes or so, during the entire cooking process to create the creaminess. Ingredients: ½ onion; chopped 3 tablespoons clarified butter or olive oil (50ml) 3 ounces (85g) Shiitake or other good flavored mushrooms; coarsely chopped 2 tablespoons dry white wine 2½ to 3 cups (600-700ml) chicken stock; homemade or store-bought 1 tablespoon butter 1 tablespoon olive oil 1 cup (200g) Arborio rice 1 generous pinch of saffron (optional); about 15 threads 1 ounce (30g) Parmesan or Romano cheese; grated or shredded Salt and pepper to taste Directions: Place the chopped onion in a skillet with the clarified butter or olive oil and sauté until translucent and tender, 5 to 6 minutes. Sauté longer if you wish to caramelize the onion, in which case cook until golden brown, about 20 minutes. Add the chopped mushrooms and cook an additional 3 to 4 minutes. Add the wine and simmer to reduce liquid volume to about half. Remove from the heat and set aside. Place chicken stock in a small saucepan and heat to boiling. Reduce heat to barely simmer. Place butter and olive oil in a larger saucepan and heat to melt the butter. Reduce heat to low. Add the rice and stir. Add about ½ cup (60ml) hot chicken stock and the saffron (optional). Stir to combine. Stir gently as the liquid simmers, being careful that the rice does not stick to the bottom, until most of the liquid is absorbed. Add another ladle of stock and continue stirring over low heat, again until most of the liquid is absorbed. Continue until you ve incorporated most of the stock. Check the rice for tenderness. Use more stock (or additional water) and continue cooking if you want a softer rice. For an al dente rice, 20 to 22 minutes total cooking time should suffice. For tender rice, you might need to cook it for as long as 25 minutes. Add the onion-mushroom mixture to the risotto and stir to combine. Remove from the heat and let cool a few minutes. Gently stir in the cheese. Do not over-stir, as this might make the cheese stringy. Add salt and pepper to taste. Serve with a rich flavored meat, such as Pesto Lamb. 1 The Step By Step guide begins on the following page. 20110120
1 STEP-BY-STEP 2 The blocks on the right are my cups of frozen concentrated chicken stock. I am using only two because these are concentrated. I ll need to add some water. The plastic bag toward the bottoms is caramelized onion. I buy the 10-pound bag of onions at the warehouse store and caramelize all the onions. Then I portion them into ½-onion packs and freeze them for convenience. Some people remove the stems from Shiitake mushrooms before cooking. 2 The first step for me is to melt my stock. While the stock is melting I chop my mushrooms and start them cooking in a skillet.
3 3 I like to experiment with mushrooms. This is the first time I used shiitake mushrooms. You can use a different variety, or mix several kinds of mushrooms. These have a good earthy flavor and the texture is more chewy than the white button mushrooms you typically see in the grocery store. For a less chewy texture, remove the stems and discard. 4 I prefer to sauté my mushrooms in clarified butter or olive oil because the mushrooms will absorb the flavor. Whole butter is 20% water, milk solids, and other stuff that maybe I don t know what it is...
5 4 I add the caramelized onions after cooking the mushrooms because the onions are already cooked. If you start with raw onions, cook those first to the texture and flavor you want (translucent and tender or caramelized) and then add the mushrooms. Finally, add the white wine and simmer to reduce the liquid to about ½ its volume. Remove from the heat and set aside. 6 My stock is just coming to the simmer. You can see from the color that this stock is concentrated. It will need water to make it taste more mild.
7 5 Start the rice cooking in a larger pot (this saucepan is similar to the one holding the stock) over low heat with 2 ladles (about ½ cup) of the stock and the saffron, if using. Stir it gently as the rice starts to absorb the liquid. Don t walk away. Keep stirring, as this rice will stick to the bottom of the pan and scorch unless it is gently stirred while it is cooking. 8 Continue cooking until nearly all the liquid is absorbed. Then add another ladle of stock.
9 6 More stock is added to the pan. You can see my saffron. And again the rice is stirred as it absorbs more liquid. Continue this process, simmering over low heat until most of the liquid is absorbed, and then add more stock. 10 Here is the last of the stock being poured into my risotto. Notice the golden color of the rice. That comes from the saffron.
11 7 In the final step the mushrooms and onion are stirred in. I remove the pot from the heat, let it cool a few minutes, and then finally stir in the cheese. Taste for salt and pepper and adjust as desired. 12 Here is my golden risotto with mushrooms, ready to serve. Besides adding color, the saffron adds an earthy tone to the flavor that I think complements the flavor of the mushrooms well. This is not a mild flavored rice, and therefore I would serve this as a side dish to a rich flavored meat, such as my Pesto Lamb. This would even go well with my Tuscan Meatloaf.
Conclusion Although it might not seem obvious, the reason to work with simmering stock while you are cooking the rice is because adding cold stock would stop the cooking process. By keeping the stock at a boiling temperature you can pour it into the cooking rice without halting the cooking. 8 Notes Risotto can include many different flavors. You could include chopped fresh Italian parsley, chopped olives, even chicken meat or small cubed ham. There is room to exercise your imagination with this rice. Again, the major difference between risotto and long grain rice is the amount of starch that each yields. Arborio rice gives off more starch, creating the creamy texture for which risotto is famous.