Risotto!

General chatter:

I LOVE a good risotto. By which I don't mean basmati rice overcooked with some sad looking peas added, but a proper Italian-style dish with arborio rice or similar, which takes time and attention to get right. Once you've got the basics of a dish like that, it'll repay you a thousand times by acting as a delicious blank slate on which you can draw up the exact meal you feel like eating. It's reliable in its basic ingredients, which are almost all things you have lying around in the average kitchen, and in its timing - my risottos always take at least 40 minutes, and never more than an hour. It's great as a starter or a main, if you're eating alone or with friends. If you haven't already, I hope you'll give risotto a good couple of tries, and come to love it every bit as much as I do.

A light risotto makes a lovely lunch, say with crayfish, crab, chilli and coriander (I ate this while out for lunch last week, and it was fantastic). A big bowl of risotto with bacon (pancetta if you've got it) and peas, liberally sprinkled with parmesan shavings, is my best friend when I'm curled up in front of the telly with a glass of white wine after a long day. Somehow it feels like more of an achievement than spaghetti and tomato sauce, although it takes about the same amount of effort (if maybe a touch more time in the kitchen)!

For a big dinner, I always think risotto makes a stylish accompaniment to your main dish - if you're sick of potatoes as a side, give risotto a go. Try something like thyme and wild mushroom risotto with lamb, perhaps, or a chilli-based one with asian braised pork belly. Pork belly's very trendy at the minute too, and it's quite a cheap cut. If you're serving your risotto as a side dish, it might be best to dole it out yourself - and think 'less is more'. You want the risotto to be a partner to your meat or main dish in this instance, rather than the main event - although, of course, it can certainly hold its own as a centrepiece if necessary. Try serving it in a roasted, scooped-out half of butternut squash.

Pre-cooking risotto (for dinner parties) 

Another little tip, which I learned from the Food Guru, is that you can actually part-make risotto in advance. PLEASE bear in mind when I say this that I don't mean days in advance - if you leave rice for too long before re-heating and eating it, it can harbour various very nasty little stomach bugs, which anyone who's picked at an ill-advised morning-after Chinese will vouch for. They don't just stop at a dodgy tummy either, and your life is (hopefully) worth more than a couple of grains of rice.

Bleak warning over.

Anyway, to pre-cook risotto just do the basics the hour before your guests arrive rather than the hour after they get there, when you're busy trying to be a star hostess (or host...). Make up the basic recipe (which I'll stick below in a bit - apologies to all who know it back to front, some people aren't so lucky!) to the point where the rice has nearly absorbed enough stock, which you'll know by tasting and feeling the hardness of the rice in your mouth. 

So you've got your risotto base and any other extra bits ready, and when zero hour comes you just need to mix it all together and reheat, adding extra stock and a bit of wine if necessary: it tends to thicken as it cools. You can do that after you've seated your guests, and they'll all be SO impressed that you whipped up a risotto by magic in five minutes.

Enough chatter. Here's a basic recipe, with tips on how to start making alterations:

Ingredients
(For one)

A small onion
Risotto rice - three small handfuls for a generous serving. Or three big handfuls, if you have small hands... Remember that it increases 3x in size while it cooks. Arborio rice is the easiest to get your hands on, I'm pretty sure they sell it in Tesco!
Glass of white wine
Stock - 500ml or so. The type depends on your flavours - chicken for a risotto involving chicken or other pale meats, vegetable for vegetarian risotto. I've never heard of risotto with beef stock before, but I suppose you could try it...
Grated cheese - cheddar is ok, but parmesan or really nice peccorino is best.
Salt and pepper


Method

This method will make you the absolute blank canvas of risottos. To alter them, you just put whatever ingredients you're adding in the following categories, and add them when I mention that category in the recipe. A lot of things, including all meat and vegetables like butternut squash, which makes a fantastic risotto by the way, need pre-cooking - just cook then however you like them most.

Category 1. Hard-stemmed herbs (thyme, rosemary, any whole or freshly-ground spices); onion-style ingredients (garlic and chilli are the most common here)

Category 2. Herbs which can be tough (mint is the main one, as it needs a bit of extra cooking time. Possibly also tarragon is you use it, but add some chopped leaves at the end too); dried herbs (All of them. But please don't use them if you can help it, they're honestly gross); vegetables which barely need any cooking (frozen peas, which you can add straight from the freezer by the way; spinach)

Category 3. Pre-cooked additions (pieces of chicken, beef, pork, fish or shellfish, vegetables with a long cooking time or which you want to roast before adding - No1 here is butternut squash, which makes a yummy risotto when oven-roasted in small chunks and added last-minute); soft herbs (for mixing through; examples are coriander, parsley (lovely!), dill)

Category 4. Finishers (a knob of butter just before serving makes it nice and shiny; some cheese, preferably shavings of parmesan or peccorino, is essential, either mixed through or scattered on top - or both; fresh herbs to scatter on top for a nice final presentation)


Bearing all that in mind (phew!), here's your basic method:

Finely chop the onion to about the same size as your grains of rice. Don't panic, it can be bigger if it must be. Sweat the onion and any ingredients from Category 1 in some butter or olive oil until softened and translucent. By this point your stock should also be ready and within reach. Add the rice, raise the heat a little, and mix around until all coated with the oil. Add the wine.

From now on, your rice is going to absorb liquid until it's cooked through, which will take around 40 minutes. During this time, don't just leave it to spoil, keep a close eye on it. For the next 40 minutes, this thing is your baby. Your job is to keep adding stock in small amounts, so that there's enough liquid there for the rice to absorb, but not so much that the risotto will be runny when it's finished absorbing. It shouldn't be swimming in liquid, but it shouldn't be sticking to the bottom of the pan either. It's a delicate balance and will probably be a bit scary the first time, but you'll get the hand of it!

The mixture will thicken gradually as the starch in the rice cooks. Just how thick it should be is up to you - various different regions of Italy have their own traditions. My favourite way of describing traditional risotto is "all'onda", which literally means 'like a wave' - the risotto should make little waves on the plate as you tip it up. This is traditionally achieved by adding cold butter and cheese at the end of cooking, but you don't need to worry too much about that with this basic recipe.

The most important thing is to keep on tasting. You know how pasta is best al dente, with just that touch of bite left in it? Well, when your risotto rice gets to al dente stage, it's about ten minutes before it's ready. This is the time to add your Category 2 ingredients. Be very careful with stock from now on - do add if it needs it, but beware of adding too much at once. If you do, you'll end up with rice soup, not risotto.

This point - just on al dente - is also the time to remove your risotto from the heat if you're pre-preparing it. Carry on from this point in the recipe later, once you've brought your pan back up to heat. You may need to add a little wine or stock to loosen it up a bit if you've let it cool.

When the rice reaches the texture you like best, add your Category 3 ingredients (they should be at room temperature, don't add chicken and so on straight from the fridge) and combine, cooking for a minute more just to heat them through and allow the flavours to combine.

Cheese, salt and pepper, and any Category 4 ingredients in, and serve straight away, topped with more cheese. Even the plain risotto needs some cheese stirring through before serving, and make sure you check your seasoning before you finish cooking.

With the babble removed, that's:
'cook chopped onions, rice in, stir, wine in, stir lots and add stock slowly (c.40 minutes), finish with cheese and seasoning.' 
That simple. When you've sorted that out, you'll have all the wonderful world of risotto at your fingertips. 

Happy exploring!