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Basic risotto – Antonino Carluccio

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Italian: Risotto alla Milanese

Risotto is a soft and creamy rice dish, with versions from Milan and Venice. It is eaten as a first course in Italy. The rice used is able to absorb liquid, while not becoming mushy.

The best risotto recipe nominated by Rose Gray is by Marcella Hazan for risotto with globe artichokes and appears in her Marcella’s Kitchen cookbook, as featured in The Observer’s Top 50 favourite recipes . Giorgo Locatelli’s white truffle risotto as served at Locanda Locatelli also features in The Observer’s Top 50 favourite recipes.

There are three types of rice used for risotto:

• arborio – large grain and can be boiled
• carnaroli – easy to cook grain that keeps it shape and texture. from Verona. good for seafood.
• vialone nano – large rounded grain – gives an extra creamy, smooth risotto due to the high levels of starch. Good for strong flavours.

Elizabeth David writes “…there is a split-second in the cooking of the rice – just as for scrambled eggs – when the consistency is exactly right. It is neither too liquid nor too compact. It is light, every grain is separate although bound together in a homogeneous whole by the starch which has amalgamated with the cooking liquid.”

There are three traditional styles for cooking risotto: wet, baked and fried.

1. A wet risotto is cooked on the stove top with the stock added gradually.
2. A baked risotto is cooked on the stove top in stock and finished off in the oven. It is a timbale or pilaf which is cut and served in slices.
3. A fried risotto is cooked in the oven like a pilaf until light and fluffy and then fried.

Risotto alla Milanese  should be made with real saffron and real stock. It is a traditional partner to osso bucco.

Elizabeth David advises to never “cook a risotto for a dinner party which had to be managed single-handed, because it is a bad dish to keep waiting.”

I’ve only ever had risotto once at a restaurant and I was so disappointed that it was undercooked that I’ve never attempted to order it again. Risotto is about the only thing that I can claim to still cook better than my husband!

• How to cook perfect risotto – Michelle Southan
• How to make the perfect risotto – Felicity Cloake

Multimedia

• Mushroom risotto video – Gabriel Gaté
• Risotto video – BBC Good Food
• Risotto three ways video – Peter Evans

Variations

• Mushroom risotto (Risotto con Porcini) – Antonio Carluccio
• Oven-baked risotto – BBC Good Food
• Pumpkin risotto – Stephanie Alexander
• Risotto of spring vegetables – Gordon Ramsay
• Risotto with green peas – Elizabeth David
• Saffron risotto with sausage (Risotto alla Milanese con Luganega) – Antonio Carluccio

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