Risotto is another family favourite for its creamy texture that kids love. There are so many ingredients you can experiment with for your risotto. The key to a great risotto is to pick the right starch-rich rice, take it easy on the heat, introduce your liquid slowly and keep on stirring.
As homage to its Italian provenance, in my risotto I use a pinch of saffron. There are many legends involving the origin of risotto, but one of the most interesting ones is about a young glassblower apprentice in northern part of Italy’s Lombardi region who added saffron, which has been used as a pigment in glass making, to a rice dish for a wedding. Saffron gives risotto alla milanese its distinctive color. Saffron is the world’s most expensive spice (it trades around $5,000 per kg) and gives a honey, sweet yet grassy/hay-like notes, while giving the risotto a yellow-orange colour, and balancing the freshness from the lemon.
Risotto is typically a primo corse. In Italian traditional meal structure it is served between the antipasto and secondi, and is typically a non-meat dish. In my version we are making it a dinner main with the addition of shrimp. Muscles, or other seafood, are a great as well.
Tips to get the best risotto:
Pick the right rice: Look for high-starch short grain white rice because it absorbs liquids and releases starch to make the dish creamy. Arborio type rice is the most commonly used for a risotto.
Low heat: The key with risotto is never to turn up the heat. Keep the heat on low to medium.
Keep stirring: The constant stirring with a small amount of liquid forces the grains to rub against each other and to release the starch.
Don’t drown the rice: You want to add just the right amount of stock to cover the rice, one ladle at a time. Adding all the liquid at once will make the rice not cook evenly.
Pre-heat the stock: It’s important to warm up the stock at the beginning of cooking risotto. Adding cold stock to the rice will slow down the cooking process and take longer to release the starch.
This risotto starts with olive oil & butter mix. When combined in a ration of 1:2 in the benefit of butter, you get a sauce that is buttery in taste, but not as thick, and with less saturated fat.
In this recipe, as the soffrino we use a mixture of onions and fennel with its liquorice flavour in complement of the tang from the lemon zest.
Alternative vegetarien options
Mushrooms are a great source of fiber, protein and antioxydants. Instead of using shrimp in the recipe below, sauté 1lb of shitake mushroom, stemmed and thin sliced. They give a “meaty” texture and add an earthy addition to saffron flavor. Skip the lemon, and instead add more warm flavour with freshly & finely chopped thyme.
Go green: If mushrooms are not your thing, a great spring version is the green risotto. Blanch a bunch of asparagus (thick part removed, and cut in 1 1/2 inch diagonal lengths) in boiling salted water for 3 minutes. Stop them from overcooking by putting them in an ice bath. Do the same with fresh or frozen peas. To achieve intense green color, take 2 heaping handfuls of fresh spinach, or arugula, and blanch them for 2 minutes. Then refresh in icy water. Blend it with 2 spoonfuls of stock until you have a smooth texture. Mix the asparagus, peas and the green puree with the risotto just before it is fully cooked.
To make a vegan option, remove butter and parmesan and use vegetable stock in place of chicken stock.
Creamy Risotto
Materials
- 4 tbsp Butter
- 4 tbsp Virgin Olive Oil
- 1 lb Shrimp or more depending on how much you love them
- 1 Fennel Bulb
- 1 Onion yellow, white or Spanish
- 4-5 Garlic Cloves
- 1 cup Arborio Rice
- 0.5 cup White Wine
- 5 cup Vegetable Broth if using chicken broth, use low sodium
- 2 tsp Lemon Juice
- 2 tsp Lemon Zest
- 0.5 cup Marscapone Cheese
- 0.5 cup Parmesan Cheese
- pinch Safron
Instructions
- Heat 2 tbsp of olive oil on medium heat in a dutch oven. Add the shrimp and cook for 4-5 minutes. Remove from the pot, and put in a bowl on the side. Drain the juices from the pot. Remove shrimp shells and cut them in half inch pieces.
- In another pot bring the broth to a boil. Remove from the heat.
- In a food processor, pulse chopped onion and fennel. You don’t want to have chunks of onion or fennel in your dish.
- Add the remaining olive oil and butter to the dutch oven. Saute the onion fennel mix until they become translucent; about 5 minutes.
- Add finely minced garlic and cook for 3 minutes until it releases its flavor.
- Add the rice and stir cook for 3 minutes.
- Add white wine and cook until it is fully absorbed about 2-3 minutes.
- Add the broth until it just covers the rice. Bring to a boil stirring often. Keep adding broth, a ladle at a time, stirring constantly, and waiting for the stock to be absorbed until adding more. The rice should be tender but still a bit firm, and the texture very creamy. This process should take about 20 minutes.
- Mix lemon juice, mascarpone and parmesan together in a bowl.
- When the risotto is done, remove off heat and mix in the lemon, cheese mix.
- Salt and pepper to taste.
