THE BEST
Mushroom Risotto (The Best)
1. Use Mushrooms Aplenty
You want your risotto to be bursting with mushroom flavour. This is achieved by soaking dried porcini in the chicken broth that’ll cook the rice. We like these varieties in particular for their pronounced woody taste. Also brown a large amount (three trays!) of chopped white mushrooms with garlic. You’ll continue cooking them with the rice.
2. Choose the Right Rice
Arborio rice is the rice of choice to make a risotto. It gives it richness and creaminess, and easily absorbs the flavour you want it to have. Never rinse arborio rice because its starch helps produce the desired velvetiness required for risotto. Viale nano and carnaroli rice are often considered better quality, but they’re harder to find and more expensive. Avoid rice that bears the label “Risotto Rice” because it often doesn’t hold up well to cooking.
3. Boost the Flavours
Mushrooms, shallots and garlic are good companions. First, enhance the flavour of the mushrooms by frying them in a skillet with garlic and butter. As for shallots, they’ll coat the rice to give it more flavour.
4. Wine: A Question of Taste
Before pouring the first ladle of broth, add white wine to the rice and let it reduce almost completely. This evaporation allows the removal of the excess alcohol while retaining the wine’s acidity.
5. Pour the Broth One Ladle at a Time
For a better risotto, it’s important to add the broth one ladle at a time to the rice when you cook it. This way, you can control the absorption rate better, as well as the evaporation of the broth, deciding to add more liquid or not, so the grains can remain firmer at the end of the cooking time. You’ll also develop a creamier texture if you mix in the broth when the level of liquid is low. You might not need to use the entire quantity of broth indicated.
6. The Real Texture of Risotto
The texture of a true risotto must be creamy, almost fluid. When you serve it in a bowl, it shouldn’t form a dense or sticky ball, but rather spread in the dish. In Italian, risotto is always described as all’onda, i.e., a texture that would create a wave if you were to shake the pot vigorously.
7. Leave a Groove
To make sure you have reached the desired texture, scrape a wooden spoon across the bottom of the pot. A groove should form in the risotto, then gradually close. Not too fast, not too slow.
8. No Butter as a Finishing Touch
In a classic risotto recipe, a knob of butter is added at the same time as the cheese, just after cooking. In this case, we prefer to add only Parmesan at the end because a good amount of butter was already used at the beginning to brown the mushrooms. Adding butter would be unnecessary.