Appallingly Alliterative Title: Marvellous Mushroom Risotto

Firstly and briefly, apologies for the long break between posts: finishing my MPhil, having my parents-in-law over from the States, hosting a wedding celebration, moving house, going on honeymoon and then settling into a new university have all meant that the past few months passed in a blur, occasionally interspersed with blogging-related guilt, but with little time to do anything to assuage it!

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A fairly simple meal which I have always loved making is risotto. This probably dates back to my late teens, when pouring extra liquid onto risotto rice and stirring was the only culinary duty that my mother (a woman who cooks food for a living) would entrust me with. To me there seemed to be something marvellously relaxing about the process: pour, stir, and watch the rice almost magically expand. Risotto can, of course, endure almost endless variation: spring vegetables (a friend of mine once served this with feta, a cheese that I adore, stirred in at the end: Mr S was apparently hurt that my retrospective panegyrics over this meal far exceeded any I had lavished on his risottos!), butternut squash, peppers and bacon, and salmon and asparagus are all risotto ‘fillings’ that I have tried and enjoyed. I do, however, have a particular soft spot for mushroom risotto.

The first time I made risotto, in fact, it was mushroom risotto. I never really learnt to cook much as a child, and the first time I really attempted entire meals completely solo was when my parents went on holiday during the summer between my A Level exams and my first year at university. One of my older brothers was home, but not always in, and when he was around we often indulged in pizza or fish fingers and chips. One evening, however, I got home from work (a full-time summer job selling school uniforms in a wonderfully old-fashioned department store: a blog post all of its own!) to find the house empty, and began to explore the possibilities outside of the freezer. I came up with a bag of risotto rice, and some dried Sichuan mushrooms (though, being a supermarket product, they were of course labelled ‘Szechuan’). I slavishly followed the packet instructions on the plastic packaging of both delectable-looking foodstuffs, and ultimately retired proudly to the living room, to consume my first ever own-made risotto in front of the television and a favourite DVD: a guilty pleasure that I would certainly not have got away with had my parents been in the house!

I like to think that my cooking skills have matured a bit since then (I’m not entirely sure if I used an onion to help add flavour and bulk back then: possibly it was an awful lot blander than my memory pretends), and my favoured take on mushroom risotto now is inspired by another memorable meal. A couple of winters ago Mr S and I enjoyed a wonderful week in Venice singing with our college choir on tour, a trip which involved, of course, many delicious evenings. Early on in the trip, however, we were largely frustrated by the nigh-unavoidable ‘menu turistico’ offered as a staple by many of the Venetian restaurants – three course set menus which, to their credit, provided extensive food, but not a huge amount of exciting variety. Mr S – having a rather less determined approach to eating anything put in front of him than I – took this a little hard, and on the third night I attempted to assuage his grumpy expression by persuading him to go in with me on the house risotto, which required two people to order it at once; a sure sign, I thought, of fresh and careful cooking! What arrived, a pile of rice and mushrooms steeped in the flavour of both strong wine and cheese, more than hit the spot.

Since that meal, I have several times tried to recreate that heavenly risotto (though I cannot, I fear, recreate the rather wonderful circumstance which followed it, which was the owner of that out-of-the-way restaurant serenading our group with a small guitar and warbling Italian singing), and I think this is more or less how it goes:

- Risotto rice: I usually use arborio (cheaper), and about 75g per person.

- Onion; I usually use half an onion for two people.

- Mushrooms: half dried (whatever type you can find) for a stronger flavour, and half fresh, preferably chestnut.

- Vegetable stock mixed with boiling water.

- White wine, preferably not too sweet or fruity.

- A generous amount of grated parmesan (or grana padano – once again, cheaper!).

- Some butter.

It seems a little extravagant to cook with wine, and this is definitely a meal to be reserved for semi-special occasions, but it is completely worth it. Do not skimp on the wine; 1/3 of a bottle for two people is entirely reasonable. It takes quite a bit of wine to get the effect, meaning that just adding a little dash here and there is a bit pointless. Both the wine and the dried mushrooms add heaps of flavour, and for some reason the dried mushrooms give the dish a much more appropriately-mushroomy colour than fresh mushrooms do.

Anyway, you cook off the onions in butter, then once they’re starting to cook add the rice. Get it coated in butter and let it cook a tiny bit, but before it sticks add a good dash of wine and stir. I find that if I breathe in at this point the fumes get me a little bit tipsy…!

Some recipes I think have you add all the wine at first and then finish off with stock, but I tend to alternate as the rice expands and the liquid cooks off, leaving the bulk of the wine for the end of the cooking – I think its flavour ends up being expressed more strongly that way. Anyway, do the whole meditative pouring, stirring, simmering, pouring, stirring, simmering cycle with the rice whilst you chop the fresh mushrooms and steep the dried ones. Add both of those about 10-15 minutes in and keep adding stock/wine, with whatever herbs and seasoning you desire.

I’m not going to say how long to cook the rice, for two reasons. One is that I never wear a watch when cooking, so generally (unless I’m putting stuff in the oven to bake) don’t really study the time, and the other is that how cooked one wants risotto to be is entirely a personal preference. Technically, of course, it should be slightly al dente, i.e. a bit firm, but not everyone will prefer this. So, add liquid (preferably ending with wine) until the rice is at the consistency you desire, then simmer down until the risotto is not too ‘wet’. Then add a fairly generous handful of parmesan and a small knob of butter and stir it in. Take it off the heat, let it bubble the butter and melt the parmesan, give it a good stir, and serve with more parmesan on top, and perhaps with a glass of the same wine used to cook with. I always think it is the ultimate success of wine-matching to drink the same wine that has flavoured a meal!

Obviously, this is not a risotto that I cook every day, or even every month. However, every now and then, when things are not feeling so lean that pouring half a bottle of drinkable wine into a saucepan does not seem like economic and alcoholic sacrilege, I’ll cook this one up, and remember the alleyways and singing restauranteers of Venice, and my first summer of culinary freedom.