I have been meaning to work on my first Risotto for about a year now; it was one of 2 food related new years resolutions, the second being baking bread... it will come, I am going to do it before the end of 2012 for sure. I have seen, heard and read about a lot of Risotto recipes; creamy delicious, broth drenched granules of rice. I had picked up my Arborio rice about 2-3 months ago... and snip snip, the packet was finally opened. I had planned to get to work by 2pm instead my usual 12pm start-up, so I thought to keep myself busy with my experimental recipe that was brewing in my head. I hate following recipe books, truth is I can't follow a recipe, I am an absolute recipe rebel (stay tuned for my upcoming post about the big boo-boo I made while trying to bake something). So after having read some awesome recipes by my fav chef Jamie Oliver, skimming through a few pages from Delia's How to cook (this book is awesome... it even shows you how to boil an egg!) and lastly Sally's (from My Custard Pie) inspirational write-up about her Risotto at Taste-of-Dubai; I was all revved up. Making risotto is not really rocket science, it all weighs mainly on the broth or stock you use and of course the key ingredient- 'Butter'. The perfect Risotto is one that is creamy enough to not hold any form, and yet the grains are firm enough to sit on a fork. Its a fine line that you need to watch out for, one step under and you are picking up nutty bits of grains from your teeth and slightly over cooking it will give you a pot full of wall paper adhesive. The fresh shitake family stared right at me from my fridge literally saying "oi.. we wanna go into your Risotto" it was decided... I was going to be vegetarian for the day. I had prepped my broth from scratch, its the only way to ensure pure success. So I got busy with a pot full of vegetable stock simmering away as little bits of potato, celery, leek, tomato peeked through the bubbling murky water. I brought the heat down to low to keep it nice and warm and started on the rice. I started by creating the perfume for my rice; sizzling some aromatic celery stalks, some leek with some white wine in a tablespoon of butter. I quickly added the mushrooms and bumped up the heat. A good 5 minutes and pop, tossed the rice into my pot... oh yes I could hear every one of the grains scream. Sally mentioned in her post how chef Giorgio Locatelli mentioned that "we should hear the rice scream" and scream it did. Ladle at a time, the rice began to sweat, it got thicker, shinier, and creamier. I did need to add in some more butter but I really wanted to cut back (yeah weight watching is slightly boring) so I eliminated a lot of the butter, bar 1 tablespoon... ok I lied... 2 tablespoons of butter; hey how can you say no to butter? The rice was spot on; a perfect 'al dente' that disintegrated on your tongue oozing out aromatic perfumed flavors off of the fresh vegetable stock; and oh the chunks of earthy mushrooms was simply a cherry on top of it all. I do believe that it could have been creamier, but the addition of a few knobs of butter would have solved that. What has been your favorite Risotto? Considering I decided to come up with my own method (of course, having been inspired from a whole bunch of kitchen genius'), have you done anything different or is there something you'd advise I do differently? Do share your Risotto experience. Enjoy! [gmc_recipe 1818]Eaternally Yours, Drina C.