10. My Faux Risotto

Risotto is a rice dish, cooked slowly over high heat, adding liquid as need be, stirring constantly. It takes arborio rice, but we have Missouri CSA rice, so that's what I use. Hence, faux risotto. Here's the plan (not a recipe because recipes are for baking, where cooking is a science. All other cooking techniques that I use have plans or skeleton recipes to fill in what I need). I make a mushroom risotto with chicken stock--I am well aware of other very very lovely options but this is my favorite homemade.

Take 5 cups of chicken stock. If you're using dried mushrooms, soak them in the stock to soften.

In a large pan, heat about 4 T olive oil and saute a chopped onion and a few cloves of garlic.

Once the onion is clear, add 2 cups of rice and stir to mix and coat. Once the rice starts to look a bit clear as opposed to dried-rice-opaque, add about a half cup of the chicken stock and the mushrooms (if I'm using fresh, it's about the equivalent of a blue styrofoam package of mushrooms--like 8 ounces?). Stir until liquid is absorbed.

Then it's like the side of the shampoo bottle: lather, rinse, repeat. Only in this case it's a half cup of stock, stir until absorbed, repeat.

Test the rice every so often to see how it is progressing. It may take more than 5 cups of liquid--I use a bit of white wine then, or water. Once the rice gets tender, I dump on herbs--fresh or dry depending on the season--usually in the thyme/parsley/basil family. Salt and pepper--I don't salt my stock so I definitely add some. Keep adding liquid until the rice starts looking creamy and is "done".

I dump in a cup of shredded Italian-friendly cheese at this point (parmesan or romano or whatever CSA equivalent of hard mildish white cheese I have). If I don't have cheese on hand (rare) or the right kind (colby just isn't the same), I put the blasphemous can of parmesan cheese on the table and let my family make their own choices.

Nom.