Elton John loves risotto. So much, in fact, that he sent his personal chef to Italy to learn how to do it properly at the feet of Luciano Parolari, considered to be one of Italy’s top risotto chefs. (Rissotieros? Risottoeri? Answers on a postcard, please.)
I, too, love risotto but, unlike Elton John, I don’t have a personal chef, and my risotto recipe has been subject to a growing number of cut corners in a bid to reconcile my love of risotto with a desire to eat it at the end of the working day.
If you are your household’s designated cook, most of your recipes will involve a degree of what can only be called cheating, or at least a willingness to make do without going to the supermarket once you have got home. I have, for example, worked out the absolute bare minimum to make something that tastes like a half-decent guacamole: lime, coriander, chilli and avocado. So, too, with risotto.
So I knew I had grown used to cooking something that was almost, but not quite risotto, but I hadn’t realised how many corners I was cutting until I went back to the source. I tried and failed to get Parolari to share his recipe with me – all I got was a restraining order – so I decided to use Marcella Hazan’s recipe, as she is the author of the oldest Italian recipe book I know.
I had simply forgotten that a proper risotto involves gradually adding the broth while stirring and not simply pouring it on the rice and leaving it to bubble. So I use leftover vegetable stock and a little chicken stock instead of my usual stock cube for the broth, and leave the porcini in to soak for a good 30 minutes before cooking. I even use a little white wine … all of the things I know I ought to do, but don’t usually, when making a risotto the rest of the time.
The result when I put the first spoonful of risotto to my lips is a lot like the scene in a movie after a character has sex for the first time: birds are singing, the sun is shining a little brighter. I had forgotten how good properly cooked risotto can taste. Goodbye, hastily assembled Tuesday-night risotto. You lived your life like a candle in the wind.
- Stylist: Stephanie Iles
