You can fuss up risotto with flavor-packed meats or pristine seafood, but it’s important to note that the dish consists mostly of rice and stock. While everyday ingredients, these two need a little coaxing before they transform into the comforting Italian dish. Just tossing rice and stock in a pot, and leaving them to cook, will result in some fine rice, but you won’t have risotto. Risotto requires technique.
To start, saute high-starch varieties of rice like arborio or carnaroli with some oil until each grain is chalky white. Stock is patiently added one ladle at time, and stirred until the liquid is absorbed before adding more. Only then will you end up with something completely different: distinct grains of rice enveloped in an astonishingly creamy sauce. This transformation is all the more amazing considering cream never enters the pot.
The only downside? The tedious act of ladling in the stock can take anywhere from 30 to 40 minutes. Try to speed things up, and you could end up with a pot of mush, which, I shouldn’t have to point out, is not risotto. So even though risotto is made mostly of humble, everyday ingredients, it’s the opposite of a weeknight meal.
Or that’s what I thought until I learned to make risotto in an electric pressure cooker.