Thoughts on risotto

I've never tried it myself. I have been watching a lot of hells kitchen, and kitchen nightmares lately. It seems like a Ramsay staple dish. I'm not sure if it's because it's easy to make, or easy to fuck up. Or if it's like a lynch pin dish that has to be eaten immediately, because the whole table needs to be served at the same time. Mess up the risotto and it's a good excuse to toss the whole ticket in the trash and start screaming.
I'm making stock Saturday or Sunday maybe I'll give it a shot.
What do you guys think about it? is it a favorite dish, or just creamed rice? Or just a yard stick to measure a cooks skill.

risotto is easy. you can put pretty much anything in it. just keep stirring and only add a cup or so liquid at a time and don't put in more until it's completely incorporated. if you're eating it right away cook it until it's done (duh i know) - but you can par cook it and use it as you need it - just finishing it up in a pan.

a simple way:
minced onion or shallot
garlic
olive oil
cook those until softened
add rice - you want to toast it a bit before you start adding liquid

add white wine and stir in - once that's absorbed start adding stock and don't stop stirring

finish with parm

It's an easy way to see how much experience a cook has. I've never had a problem making it in small and large batches, but I've seen people fuck it up pretty quickly.

also, telling people to toast the rice can be slightly misleading. You want it to get a nice pearly finish on it, not to brown it.

Yes I saw a few vids on you tube so I'm pretty sure I can make it. What I was wondering though, is it worth making. What I'm getting at is well "it's rice".
Sure homemade pasta is better then the box, but it's not so good I'm ever gonna make it myself. I was just wondering is it something people really crave? Is it just something that you add to a fancy or difficult dish because you have put so much effort on the main, plain rice just won't do it. hope that helps to get my question across

It's worth making. Like any starch, it really depends on what you make it with. Plain risotto is fine, but it takes flavor very well.

Normal rice vs risotto isn't nearly the same thing as fresh pasta vs boxed. Pasta is kind of annoying and messy to make, risotto only takes one pan.

I have been making risotto for almost 20 years now.

The key is in the liquid you use to cook it with - that is where your flavour will stem from.

For example, one of the most flavourful risotto's I make is a tomato and buffalo mozerella risotto, whereby I use a tomato 'water' (see strained soup) as the liquid to impart a fuckload of flavour.

The key is to 'toast' the rice (and the other key is the type of rice - I prefer Arborio) meaning, getting it translucent, prior to adding the wine and deglazing.

Also, do me and the other Italians in the world a favour and NEVER put in cream at the end of your risotto!

I usually make risotto with arborio rice, veggie stock, mushrooms(more expensive better), and FRESH real parmesan. It is so easy, I never quite understand how they screw it up so often on Hell's Kitchen. I'm not a pro, but if I made it all the time, it would be pretty easy.

I like risotto with pheasant stock, onion, butter, salt, parm, and sage.

I think in Hell's Kitchen they do a lot of parboiling as doing a risotto from start to finish is a very long process. So they take care of a lot of the time during their prep and then they can finish it in the end so that it is hot to the customer without having a lot of broken kernels.

Speaking of which how do you parboil the rice and have it ready still?

I usually make risotto with arborio rice, veggie stock, mushrooms(more expensive better), and FRESH real parmesan. It is so easy, I never quite understand how they screw it up so often on Hell's Kitchen. I'm not a pro, but if I made it all the time, it would be pretty easy.

Risotto, while not exactly difficult to execute, does require a lot of attention. Constant stirring and making sure to not over-do it (just a little too much liquid and it's ruined) while doing 4 other dishes can get complicated. I'm pretty sure the multi-tasking is the hard part.

I made a bacon, leek, and pea risotto on saturday night. It was fantastic.

gordon makes people cook risotto all the time because its something you have to pay attention to, then he makes them do other things at the same time. it's a guaranteed fuck up for novices when they get busy.

similar issue with beef wellington. it's a dish that you can't tell if the meat is cooked until it's too late, and until you learn how those ovens are going to cook your beef you're basically guaranteed to get a bunch of them wrong.

or you can just check it with a thermapen (or a regular meat thermometer) through the vent holes?

Yes, of course that is how it is normally done, but Gordon doesn't let them use meat thermometers on the Wellingtons. It was in an interview on the Season 3 DVD.

fuckin gordon

I've done risotto a few times with success. It's kind of a pain in the ass to make in terms of the time it takes. Wild mushroom risotto is pretty fantastic stuff though.

Toasting the rice is new to me i've never done that. I'll have to try that for the next time.

I recently made a Risotto Milanese... it was my first and it came out quite nice.

Now that I have the technique down I am going to shoot for something that has a little more to it.

I had started to make risotto a year ago, and presently it is the ONLY side dish that never survives to be leftovers. There is something about it that makes you want to eat it, and I use the basic Parmesan recipe. I usually start by browning some butter in the sauce pan, and then sweating the minced onions/shallots with that and a bit of salt. After that you put in the rice and toast it (gets translucent). Once it's like that you pour in the liquid (can be water, chicken stock, etc.) and a bit of white wine. The wine can be optional but it adds more to it so I only use it for fancy dinners. You add just enough liquid to submerge the rice and then stir and cook in medium heat. Once the rice absorbs some of the liquid, you keep adding more in batches and letting it absorb until it's the consistency you want it. Once you do that you stir in the Parmesan and serve. And yeah there are plenty of other risotto recipes, but I just like the nutty aroma from it then. My risotto tends to be al dente with a little on the sticky side, not really fluid but it tastes good and the texture is what I like it. The real trick to it is not constant stirring but stirring regularly and adding more liquid as it cooks. If you don't stir or forget to add more liquid that is when it burns.

Naturally it is too labor-intensive for most kitchens, so they usually partially cook the rice prior to service and use higher heat. The result isn't as natural or as tasty a risotto as you get from home when done properly, but that's how it's done. The reason behind it all is people assume risotto is too hard to make at home and too fancy, and they are used to real risotto so they assume the restaurants do it right.