How to make a Risotto (PHP build style)
Archive - Originally posted on "The Horse's Mouth" - 2009-08-02 14:25:52 - Graham EllisWritten on last night's long flight ... posted today
Talking with Gisela, seated next to me on this Mexicana flight, I have learned why my Risottos are always sticky. Basically, wrong ingredients and wrong cooker method!
Here's her recipe, from Buenos Aires via Mexico City ...
Take some carnaroli rice ("none of your oriental stuff").And don't do anything with it. Yet.
Take an onion and finely chop it (same size as rice grains - gee, I'm used to coarse cookery! And fry it in olive oil. When soft, add the rice and cook until transparent - that's just a couple of minutes.
Add 1/3 of a glass of dry white wine. Pour rest of glass into chef's mouth and swallow.
Take some vegetable stock you previously prepared (ouch - if you are following this you are gonna be cursing me now! It's like the PHP installation instructions which say at step 8 "you did remember --enable-so at step 2, didn't you"). Ladle the stock in hot (litle at a time, like making a cream sauce) until it's done.
You're adding stock as it needs it (ah - good example of a feedback loop) and keep stirring for around 20 minutes.
When done, take off cooker and add a couple of cubes of cold butter and 50 ml cream and as much cheese as the customers want ... Parmesan or similar. And other things to taste .. safron to stock, funghi, pollo.
There are so many times that we sit next to someone on a flight, each in whiling away the journey time in our own world. I like those occasions where the Ice is broken - as it was last night - and you spark a brief friendship. If you happen across this, Gisela, I how your 'Masters' comes through, and things go well for you ... whatever country (if any) you settle in.