Thursday, August 20, 2009

15 Minute Risotto

Cuisinart should probably start sending me money given how often I pimp their pressure cooker and food processors. But here we go again, another pressure cooker recipe.

Risotto is a bit tricky given that I have never actually eaten it. My finished product looked like the picture in the cookbook, and the wife liked it, so as far as I'm concerned that makes it risotto. Note to self: go to high-end Italian restaurant to see what risotto is supposed to taste like.

Melt 2 tbslp butter in the bowl of your handy dandy pressure cooker. Well, yours might be handy dandy. Ours is bulky, black and ominous, like a steam-powered R2D2 commissioned by Albert Speer. It's great.

Chop half an onion, .5 carrot, and .5 stalk celery very fine. Food processors work well here. Saute in the butter until soft-ish. Add 1 clove garlic, chopped very fine. Saute until it starts aromatizing, but do not let anything turn brown.

Add 1 cup arborio rice to this mixture and cook, stirring, for about 3 minutes, or until the rice gets a toasty smell and the ends of the rice grains have turned translucent. Risotto scholars assure me this step is critical.

Add .25-.3 cup white wine and .5 tsp salt to this mixture and cook, stirring, until liquid is absorbed.

Add 2 cups chicken broth, lid, and set on high pressure for 6 minutes. Reserve .25 cups of broth.

While that's going on, shred 1 cup Parmesean or similar cheese. Broil or otherwise cook 2 cups mushrooms. I used criminis aka "baby bellas", they're good and cheap. I wished I had some asparagus, 1 cup steamed asparagus would have been nice. I used peas instead and rather wished I didn't. With risotto, always make sure the add-ins are pre-cooked, unless leafy or herbal in nature. Cook mushrooms in with the rice and you'll get rice gruel as the fungi will over-moisturize the risotto. So say the risotto scholars, anyway, and who am I to question them?

De-pressurize the cooker and set it to simmer. Stir. You can tell the risotto is about ready when the liquid pulls completely off the bottom of the pan. If it flows back in, it's still too liquid, and you have some more cooking/stirring to do. If it's too dry use the reserved broth to moisten it, cooking and stirring while you add it in drabs. You can tell it's too dry by tasting: the rice should be just al dente, surrounded with creamy fluid, but not crunchy raw rice. Anyway, if the rice is cooked and you can drag the spoon across the bottom of the pan and see the pan bottom, you're ready for the last additions.

Stir in the cooked veggies/fungus. Keep stirring. Add the cheese in batches, stirring until incorporated. Serve immediately and eat it all. You have to. Risotto does not keep well in the fridge. Take a nap.

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