A little while back, we visited Rome for a week or so. While we were there we had a couple of opportunities to have mushroom risotto at restaurants around the city. one of them was spectacular, the other was… disappointing… to say the least.

Some time after I got back, I saw a video on YouTube from the channel ItaliaSquisita. And they had a video about risotto within which they publicized their new book, Rice:the Italian way of which they are kind enough to sell an English translation. What follows is a condensation/variation of the basic risotto recipe (given the limitations of what ingredients I had at hand at 10pm on a night where I had coffee way too late in the day… and I generally don’t have saffron about the house.)

Ingredients

• 3/4 cup Risotto (Arborio) rice
• 1/2 cup white wine. Of an acidic variety.
• Pepper to taste (hold off on salt until later)
• 1 quart of boiling liquid. In my case water with ‘better than bullion’ beef broth
• Sliced Mushrooms about 2 cups
• 2-3 tablespoons of cold butter
• 1/4 cup of *good* grated/shredded Parmesan

Steps

• In a dry skillet, heat with medium heat and add the mushrooms. Let them cook until all the water comes out and they start to brown. Stirring occasionally.
• While that is going on, put the liquid (broth) in to a pot and bring to a boil.
• In a deep saute pan heat the risotto over a medium heat, again dry pan. The objective here is to lightly toast the risotto before adding any liquid.
• As the risotto is toasting after a few minutes, add pepper and allow it to toast a bit with the risotto.
• As the risotto toasts it should become a bit more translucent. When that has occurred, add 1/4 cup of the white wine and let it boil off while stirring.
• When the wine has boiled off, start ladling some of the simmering broth in. Add enough to cover the risotto and begin to stir.
• The as the broth boils away, just before anything begins to stick to the bottom of the pot, add more broth and keep stirring. repeat this step until you run out of broth
• By this point the mushrooms should be fully cooked down. Add the mushrooms with the last of the broth and stir in.
• As the broth should at this point be thickened by the starch from the risotto, turn off the heat and allow the risotto to cool a bit.
• Deglaze the mushroom pan with the remainder of the white wine. Let the wine reduce about half, then pour the into the risotto and stir.
• The risotto needs to cool for a bit now. If you do the next steps too soon the butter and cheese will separate, you should just be able to take a bite without burning yourself.
• As the risotto temperature drops below about 150°, add the butter and begin to stir vigorously until the butter is incorporated fully. The vigorous stirring will help release starch.
• Lastly, add the Parmesan and stir in. The objective here is that the cheese be added at a temperature below which it not split and become stringy, but high enough that it still melts. If you can take a bite without burning yourself, it should be fine.
• Serve.