Prep Time: 10 minutes
Cook Time: 20 minutes
Total Time: 30 minutes

Servings: 4-6

Cuisine: Italian
Course: Main Course

Serve With: Italian Chopped Salad and Crusty Bread

Ingredients:

• 2 ounces butter
• 1 cup finely minced onions, about the same size as the rice
• 2 cups sliced crimini or porcini mushrooms
• 1 clove minced garlic
• 1 1/2 cups arborio rice (no substitutes)
• 1/2 cup dry white wine, such as chardonnay
• 8 cups chicken or vegetable broth (or water)
• 1 cup grated parmesan cheese

• Optional add-on ingredients: Diced cooked chicken; sauteed garlic shrimp with 1 tablespoon tomato paste; crisp-cooked asparagus tips; diced cooked ham and green peas; cubed butternut squash or pumpkin
  

Directions:

How to Cook Risotto:

1. Place broth in a large sauce pot and keep over low heat. Have a ladle ready to use.
2. Heat a heavy saute pan over medium high heat. Add butter and saute the minced onions. Add mushrooms and saute until soft and translucent. Add garlic and saute about 2 minutes. Stir in rice and saute about 5 minutes.
3. Add wine and let slowly cook down a couple minutes. Add your first ladle of chicken or vegetable broth to the pan. Keep stirring continuously, adding a ladle at a time as the previous ladle of liquid cooks off.
4. After 25 minutes, it will have the consistency of oatmeal. You want it to be soft, but still firm. Stir in the parmesan cheese and season with fresh cracked pepper.

Chef Jason's Notes: Risotto is one of my favorite dishes from Northern Italy, mostly because it's so versatile. You can serve this alone as a first course, or as a hearty main dish, served with a side of Italian salad and crusty bread.

Today we're making a mushroom risotto recipe, which is one of my favorite preparations. Wild porcini mushrooms are a classic addition to this, as with a porcini risotto, but today I'm just using crimini mushrooms, which are readily available in most supermarkets. For a quick pumpkin risotto for fall, follow this recipe and add 1 cup diced butternut squash or pumpkin to the pan when you add the mushrooms.

Risotto recipes are great because you can add so many different ingredients. This easy risotto can used in a variety of ways. For a chicken risotto recipe, add diced cooked chicken about 20 minutes into the cooking process. For a seafood risotto or shrimp risotto, you can stir in some of my sauteed garlic shrimp toward the end with about 1 tablespoon of tomato paste. In the Veneto region, an Italian risotto called risi e bisi is classic — made with the addition of green peas and diced ham.

Asparagus risotto is great for vegetarians, and you can use vegetable stock instead of chicken broth. For this, I'd add about 8 ounces of crisp cooked asparagus tips, again after about 20 minutes of cooking.  For vegetarian risotto, you can add some of your favorite sauteed spring vegetables such as matchstick-shaped yellow squash, fresh green beans, fava beans or green peas.

This recipe for risotto requires slow cooking and steady stirring — it usually takes about 20 or 30 minutes to complete. Before serving, be sure the rice is still al dente, which means it's tender, but firm to the bite. When cooking risotto, you also want to be sure you stir every piece of rice, as even one hard bit of rice will ruin the creamy texture of this wonderful dish.