Easy and Delicious Mushroom Risotto

Hi Friends, it’s mushroom season which means it’s time too make and perfect the mushroom risotto which is really so simple but oh so very delicious and I just know you will love it!

RECIPE:
6 cups of Water
2oz of Dried Porcini Mushrooms
2 Tbsp of Tomato Paste
1/4 cup of Extra Virgin Olive Oil, divided
10oz of Cremini Mushrooms, thinly sliced
5oz of Shiitake Mushrooms, stem removed and thinly sliced
1 Small Yellow Onion, minced
3 Cloves of Garlic, minced
1 cup of Arborio Rice
1/2 cup of Dry White Wine (red works too)
Plenty of Salt and Pepper
2 Tbsp of Butter
1/2 cup of Grated Parm

Printable recipe: http://www.laurainthekitchen.com

Instagram: @mrsvitale

We are making a falltime classic. We are making a mushroom ratoto. It is creamy. It’s delicious. And it’s really sort of infused with all of that goodness like mushroom flavor. And especially around this time of year, it is time to really dive into this and make it the ultimate because it’s actually quite simple. But with a few little tips and tricks, you’re going to make it really the best you’ve ever had. Now, I’m going to start off with making the stock. We’re going to make like a porchini stock to feed our rice as it cooks. So, what I’m going to do is in a saucepan, I am going to go ahead and add some dried porchini mushrooms. And these are something I have to specialty order online because they’re very hard for me to find uh in a supermarket. And it’s a step I don’t think you should skip because this gives you a ton of really beautiful mushroom flavor. So, to that, I’m going to add some water. And it’s going to look like it’s too much water for the amount of mushrooms, but trust me when I tell you, it’s going to work out super perfect. And then to that, I’m going to add a couple of tablespoons of tomato paste. I’m going to put this onto the stove to bring to a simmer. And I’m just going to keep it at a simmer while everything else gets going. Now, it’s important that you keep your stock close to your pan that you’re going to make your rice in. And speaking of pans, you really want to make sure you get you use a shallow but really kind of wide pan for this and you don’t use a saucepan. When you use a saucepan to make risotto, you’re going to get uneven heat distribution to your rice, meaning that the outside of your rice in that saucepan is going to cook perfectly while the center of the rice is going to be quite mushy. So using a pan like this one allows for even heat distribution and your rice is going to cook nice and even which is why the Italians would never use a small deep pot to make a ratoto. It’s a no no. In terms of what other mushrooms you’re going to need, I’m using a mixture of shiakei mushrooms and baby bellas or also known as cremeni. Now I’m going to be honest. If I lived in a place that was close to like a Wegman’s or close to like a great market in the city and I had uh you know the option to use a mix of wild mushrooms, that’s what I would use. But because I live in the middle of absolutely nowhere, I have a hard time getting you know really cool exotic things. But these are mushrooms that are pretty much available in most grocery stores and they have really good like deep flavor uh for being readily available everywhere and nice and easy to source and they’re really delicious. And what I’m doing is I’m just slicing the baby bellas and the shiakei mushrooms. They kind of come already sliced like that. And if some of them are really really long, I’ll cut them in half. If not, I’ll just leave them as is. This is about the size that you want them. You’ll get different textures and it’ll look different as you cook them and it’s going to be fantastic. So, let me just finish these up and then we’ll get cooking them. To my skillet pan with extra virgin olive oil, I’m going to go ahead and add in my mushrooms. I’m going to add in the shiakei and I’m going to add my cremenis. I am going to add a pinch of salt. Now, I don’t mind that it’s going to draw out excess moisture because I want it to because I want those mushrooms to cook down, develop some color, develop some texture. and then I’ll take them out and I’ll add them into my rulo at the very very end. So, I’m just going to let these go. It’s going to take about 10ish minutes and then I’ll move on to the next step. Mushrooms look absolutely perfect. I’m just going to get them out. I’m going to pull them closest to me. I’m going to pull them out. I’m just going to use like a slotted spoon to get them out of there. These are just going to set aside at this point because I want to add them towards the end. My stock mixture came up to a simmer, lowered it as low as it would go because I don’t want to evaporate it. I just want to keep it at warm temperature cuz you don’t want to add cold stock to the mushrooms as they cook. Come on. Few more. All good. Whatever’s left in there, it’s going to have to just do. Another drizzle of extra virgin olive oil to the pan. Remember, this is a really easy, simple recipe, but technique is really key. So, I’m going to add in my onion. You could also do shallots. I just did a half of a yellow onion. I don’t want anything too overpowering. I’m going to cook it into that olive oil for a few minutes or until it softens. And then we’ll go in with the garlic. Get that garlic in. Cook it for just like 30 seconds or so. You want to cook out that raw garlic flavor. Add in your risoto rice or aloreio rice or any short grain rice. That’s really the best rice for this. You see how it’s almost shiny because I coated it in that olive oil that was in the pan. Don’t skip that step. I know you’re kind of tempted to just add everything in, add in your stock, and walk away. And you can do that, but you’re not going to get risoto because what makes risoto different than just like a regular rice dish is the texture. So, what I’m going to do now is just kind of toast it into those in that uh, you know, onion oil mixture just for like a minute. And that’s going to add another layer of flavor to your overall dish. Looks great. I’m going to add a splash of white wine. You want about a half a cup. I’m going to let that evaporate before I start adding my stock. Now, this is the point where you if you want to take a FaceTime call, set your phone right here, but you don’t walk away. Ratoto is not the type of thing you want to walk away from because you need to feed it the stock when your rice is ready for it. So, you know how we just added that splash of white wine? We’re not adding any stock until that white wine has absorbed, evaporated, and you’ll know because your rice is going to start to go from like liquidy to dry. And when you pull it together with your wooden spoon and you kind of put it down and you drag it back, it doesn’t all go in because it doesn’t have enough liquid. When it looks like it’s at that point, that’s when you start adding your stock. One ladle full at a time. We’re almost there. Not quite yet. If you want to omit the wine, feel free. Um, I just like to add it because it gives you another note and also it gives you really good balance with some acidity. You see how it’s not there’s no liquid pulling into the center. It’s all been absorbed. That’s when you know you’re ready for a ladle full of the stock. And I’m just going to make sure I don’t grab the stock from the very bottom because it has a little bit of grit in it from the mushrooms. So I just grab it from the very top. And look at that gorgeous color. Look at it. And you see how it’s liquidy right now? If you drag it back, you see how there’s a pool of liquid? You can’t add more stock until that pool of liquid is no longer there. So, I’m gonna continue to just stir and add, stir, and add until the rice is just about fully cooked through. I would say the rice is about 5 minutes away from being done. And this is the part where I took the dried porchini out of that stock and I gave them a really good chop. Now, I’m going to add them in. Okay. along with the mushrooms that we sauteed. I’m going to leave just a few mushrooms behind to top the ratoto with it. And now I’m going to add more stock. Remember, I’m just going to tilt the pan so I don’t get any grit from the bottom. This is going to need probably two more ladlefuls of the stock just to finish cooking the rice through. You also need to heavily season this at this point. Now, I did make sure to add a pinch of salt to my stock as it was simmering or as it was on the burner, but it does need a good amount of seasoning. So, I’m going to go ahead and add a good pinch of salt and a little black pepper. And I’m just going to continue to cook this until the rice is just about done. And then we’ll put a couple finishing touches on it and then it’s ready. Rice is just about ready. So, you know how I like to finish my risoto. Lastly, full. Turn it off. Butter at room temperature, not too cold. Good heavy handful of fresh parm. Okay. Where’s my There we go. Put a lid on this. Just Just put a lid on it. I don’t have a lid that fits this pan, but you know what? I do have a pizza pan. Let it sit 5 minutes off the heat. It will absorb that extra liquid that we just added. The butter will melt, the cheese will melt, the rice will be perfect. Give it 5 minutes covered off the heat, and then you’re going to be ready to taste perfection. Look at it. Okay. Now, we have a saying in Italy. Ratoto should be like a wave. Like, you know the wave at the shore. When you pull it back, look what the look what the risoto does. You see how it kind of like a wave. You see that? That is the perfect texture of rto in my humbles of opinions. And to me, a risoto like a mushroom risoto, it’s very simple, but you just need to execute it right. And in Italy, look at this texture. Look at it. Perfection. Absolute perfection. You would always eat your riatoto on a warm plate. And you would never ever eat risoto with a spoon. It must be eaten with a fork. I don’t make the rules. They make the rules. And they’re correct. Now, you guys, it is so delicious. is so rich. It’s got such like creaminess to it because of all of that that starch from the rice. It’s deep in flavor. It’s just absolutely sublime. When I go to serve it, I’m going to top it with more mushrooms, more cheese, another drizzle of extra virgin olive oil, and it is perfect. Now, you make sure that you take it from stove to table within 5 minutes of it being done because the longer it sets, the more it will absorb all of that excess moisture and all that excess liquid and then your dry your rice will be dry. So, we don’t want that. So, serve it right away. Go to laurinthekitchen.com for the written recipe. Hope you enjoy spending time with me and I will see you in the next one. Bye-bye. [Music]