Sunday, February 06, 2011

Risotto ai Funghi

Today, it is a beautiful Sunday here and quite sunny out. It is bright and a little bit warm too, not typical of February. For quite sometime now, I was craving for Risotto, and today looked perfect for that. The first time I tasted Risotto was in a restaurant in Chennai, when we went for a Team outing and ever since, I've been a big fan for it. Love Italy for its wonderful cuisine!! This is my first attempt with mushrooms. A simple tasty Italian flavour at home!!



Preparation Time: 30 Mins
Serves: 2 - 3

Ingredients:
Risotto Rice – 1 cup
Mushrooms – 250 g
Spring Onions – 2
Vegetable stock – 600 to 800ml
Butter – 60g
Olive oil – 3 Tbs
Mascarpone Cheese – 3 Tbs
Parmesan Cheese – 40 g (grated)
Salt – to taste
Pepper – to taste

Method:
Wash the mushrooms and cut them into thin slices and keep aside. Wash the spring onions and cut them into rings and keep aside. Prepare the vegetable stock and keep it hot.

In a thick, heavy bottomed pan, add a tablespoon of butter and a table spoon of olive oil. After the butter melts, add the sliced mushrooms and sauté them. When the mushrooms are soft and cooked, remove them from the pan and keep aside.

In the same pan, add the remaining butter along with the remaining olive oil.  When the oil is hot and butter melts, add the cut spring onions and sauté them. When they turn translucent, add the rice and sauté them nicely until well coated with the butter. After a minute, add a ladle full of stock and stir nicely. The rice starts to absorb the stock and cook along. When it looks dry, add another ladle full of stock and keep stirring. This has to be repeated until the rice is cooked and creamy. This may take about 20 mins. Continuous stirring is essential.

Note: Depending on the type of rice used for the risotto, the amount of stock needed to cook the rice varies. So, it is better to keep about a liter of stock ready (for a cup of rice). I used Arborio rice and it drank almost 900ml stock. If you run out of stock and still your rice isn’t cooked, you can add hot water too.

When the rice is almost done, add the cooked mushrooms and the mascarpone cheese and give a final stir.
Just before serving, sprinkle the parmesan cheese and pepper over your hot plate of risotto and enjoyyyy….

Note:
  • Risotto should be consumed immediately after cooking, hot.
  • The consistency of risotto should be such that it is not too gluey and not too liquidy and running out of the plate. When prepared correct, it would be creamy rich and would melt heavenly in your mouth.
  • Chanterelle type of mushrooms is ideal for this type of risotto. Since I couldn’t get it, I used the button shaped mushrooms and they were never a compromise.

9 comments :

  1. Never ever tasted Risotto before, your plate of Risotto looks very inviting, although I had my dinner still feeling hungry after seeing the picture :)

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  2. I am a big fan Italian cuisine too..Risotto looks yummy!

    US Masala

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  3. @aipi, Priya and Umm Mymoonah:
    Thank you friends for your wonderful comments... :-)

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  4. Hi - First hats off on the risotto - What a very fine plate of food that is :)
    To answer your question, you can certainly follow the same procedure with potatoes, sweet potatoes or even spinach --- Glad you enjoyed the recipe Please let me know when you try it!

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  5. looks very tempting and easy to prepare too...inshallah will definitely give it a try :)

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  6. I have never tasted it before but your pics and explanation tempts me to try it

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  7. Dear Priya, Reshmi and Padhu, thanks a lot for your lovely comments. Once you try Risotto, you wud be tempted to try often... not just limiting to mushrooms...

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  8. I think I too need to make risotto, sounds superb :)

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