Risotto is one of my favourite meals, the recipe in this blog post is with crumbled chorizo but remove that and you have the basic recipe for risotto that you can use for all your future risottos. There are so many different ways you can vary your risotto, here are some ideas:
- With mushrooms
- With crumbled salsiccia
- With peas and bacon
- With truffle
- With Marsala wine and saffron (Milanese)
- With asparagus and bacon
- With asparagus and lemon
- With roasted butternut squash
- With beets
- With fennel
- With shrimps
- With artichoke
Some of these additions can be added in the beginning and cook along with the rice, but vegetables are preferably cooked separately and added in the end to avoid it getting mushy. A tip for knowing when your risotto is ready is to use the “smear test” as described in this article over at the Kitchn
Recipe: Risotto with chorizo and the basics on how to cook risotto
Ingredients
- 400 ml risotto rice e.g. arborio rice, 365 g
- 200 g fresh chorizo the quality and flavour of the sausages have a big impact on the end result
- 1 onion
- 2 garlic cloves
- 150 ml white wine 2/3 cups
- 150 g parmesan cheese
- 1 l water
- 2 bouillon cubes your choice of flavor
- 100 g butter to use both for frying and to add in the end
- salt
- black pepper
Instructions
- Finely chop the onion and garlic, grate the cheese and remove the skin from the sausages
- Heat the water with the bouillon cubes in a small pot and keep it hot but not simmering
- Fry the onion and garlic in a bigger pot together with butter until translucent
- Crumble the sausages to small pieces and add to the onion. Fry for around 3 minutes.
- Add the rice and turn down the heat to medium-low while stirring to coat all grains with butter (add more butter if needed)
- Toast the rice a few minutes until the grains start turning translucent on the edges but not browning!
- Add the wine and let the rice soak in the wine
- Add around 1/4 of the liquid (or use a ladle) and stir often until most have been soaked in by the rice, Add another ladle and repeat. It is important to stir often to avoid burning and also to help the grains release their starch. If you run out of stock before the grains are ready, then just add boiling hot water
- When the grains are cooked through and al dente (around 20 min) then turn off the heat and add the cheese, salt and pepper and a generous amount of butter (~2 tbsp). Stir until cheese and butter has melted.
- Serve the risotto hot in a deep plate and with some additional grated parmesan on top
Tried this recipe?Let us know how it was!
Here are different variants of risotto recipes: https://www.pinterest.com/IngrediMatcher/risotto-recipes/