Tuesday 26 April 2016

How to Make the Perfect Risotto


Art?

Who cares about art. From now on, I'm turning* this blog into a cooking blog.

And since I've recently had a good chance to cook risotto, Italy is where we shall start. After all, Italy is all about food (besides Dante, opera, fantastic cocktails, football and a million other things). In fact, the nearest I've come to dying of gluttony was not far from Piazza del Campo a few years ago. Basically, food is essential. And you are no kind of man if you can't make the perfect risotto.

So. Here we go.


Risotto. Risotto with mushrooms. 


Ingredients:

First thing you should get is wine. White wine. Don't go for anything fancy. Simple table wine (dry or semi-dry) will do. 200ml. Could be a little more, but don't overdo it - could turn out sour.

Rice. 300g. Arborio is perfect, but you can't go wrong with camolino.

Mushrooms. 300g. Call them champignons if you wish to.

1 onion.

Soya sauce. Mix it with H₂O. I'd say 50ml per one liter of water.

Cheese. Grate it. You won't need much. This is for embellishment purposes. And for the taste, too.

Butter. Plain butter. 100g of it.

Salt (essential).

Saffron (inessential).

What else you will need:

A stewpan and a pair of hands. If you don't have a stewpan, fuck it, use a decent frying pan. If you don't have hands, boy, you're in trouble. 

Estimated time:

47 minutes.

Process:

Act I.

Put butter into your stewpan. Or frying pan. Or whatever it is that you are using. Fry the chopped onion until it turns a little brown and starts to give off that smell.

Act II.

Add mushrooms (chop the wankers beforehand) into it and fry some more (water from the mushrooms should all go). Throw the rice into your stewpan. Or frying pan. Or whatever it is that you are using. Cook it all for a couple of minutes and do not forget to stir!

Intermission.

Pour wine as well as your water mixed with soya sauce into the rice. When half of wine and soya water have evaporated, add salt and a pinch of saffron.

Act III.

Keep stirring. Cook it all until rice is ready. In the event that the rice is not ready yet and the wine and the soya water are all gone, add some more soya water and/or wine. Keep doing it until you feel that the perfect risotto is ready. Then sprinkle it all with a sensible amount of grated cheese.

The End.

Perfect background listening:

The Band - Music From Big Pink

By the time "The Weight" arrives, you should already be pouring white wine into your rice.

To be served with:

Wine. Good wine. Red, white, rosé. Good wine. Never drink cheap wine. In spite of what the name of this site might be telling you.


*Im not.