Porcini mushroom risotto

Porcini mushroom risotto How-To

Preparation and cooking

• - Clean mushrooms.
  Follow these simple tips: clean mushrooms removing any lumps of earth and other impurities with the tip of a knife blade.
  Brush off grit and dirt with a toothbrush.
  Do not rinse them with running water; you could loose their delicate taste!
  Moisten some absorbent kitchen paper and clean them accurately.
• - Cut them into slices or dice if they are large.
• - Put mushrooms in a large pan with olive oil and bay leaf and cook over high heat for few minutes, stirring frequently, to reduce the liquid in excess.
  Fungi usually eliminate a bit of water.
• - Meanwhile prepare stock and dissolve in the saffron.
• - Add rice to the pan with mushrooms and toast it, stirring with a wooden spoon.
• - Moisten with wine and let it evaporate over high heat.
• - Start adding a ladle of hot stock.
• - Reduce the heat and let the stock simmer.
• - Continue pouring in stock, ladle by ladle, until rice is fully cooked.
  Simultaneously cooking liquid must be almost completely reduced.
  Remember to keep your stock boiling,
  This is the only difficulty in making risotto.
  For this reason it is recommended not to add stock all together.
• - Another tip in making risotto: you should not stir rice too much.
  This is the thought of the greatest Italian chefs.
• - Add chives and parsley a minute before turning off your stove.

Just before serving

• - When your rice is cooked, turn off your stove and let risotto rest a couple of minutes.
• - Serve with a little bowl of grated Parmesan.
  So everyone will be able to sprinkle it on the top according to his own taste.

Note

Tips

• - You can also use frozen mushrooms or dried ones. You have to cook them in the same way of fresh ones. Dried mushrooms must be soaked.
• - You can substitute red wine with a little glass of sherry of "Marsala" (kind of Sicilian wine) or "Mirto" (kind of Sardinian liqueur) if your mushrooms don't smell too much. Above all I suggest you this substitution in the case of cultivated mushrooms. Use also a shallot.
• - The amount of stock is highly variable and depends on the type of rice and the same ingredients.
• - If porcini mushrooms smell well you can use no saffron.
• - If you want you can also add a garlic clove to the other ingredients. My husband and I think if mushrooms are really smelling garlic tends to cover their scent.

Menu planning

• - I suggest this risotto with mushroms for your daily menu as I explain on "Healthy eating" below for some good reasons.
• - But it's very tasty and so you can plan an Italian full menu too. It's perfect for your special occasions.
  Starter: be careful. Don't serve too much assorted salami. It's a plate too rich in flavors and so you may risk that your risotto has no taste. I generally serve crostini or focaccia, cubed and accompanied by smoked cotto ham.
  First course: this mushroom risotto
  Second course. In our index dedicated to meat recipe you can find your favorite dish. I prefer stuffed boned rabbit after rice with mushrooms. Accompanied by potatoes it's yummy! This is my tip in fall. In spring I'd suggest a lamb dish.
  Dessert. In spring cherry tart and in fall Italian castagnaccio, fabulous cake with chestnuts.

Useful links for this recipe

• - Interested in cep mushrooms? in this page you'll find a lot of interesting details to choose, clean and cook this kind of mushrooms.
• - Here are the recipes I suggest to plan your menus: stuffed boned rabbit and castagnaccio for a fall meal and cherry tart as spring dessert.
• - Read our blog to know tips and tricks to make a perfect risotto with dried mushrooms
• - Have a look at our page dedicated to mushrooms if you want other recipe ideas.

Healthy eating

• - Risotto with porcini mushrooms has few ingredients. It's a low-calorie main dish, perfect for your family lunch in fall. Read its nutrition facts. Complete your menu with seasonal vegetables if you're still hungry. Chicory, fennel or the last bell peppers are perfect to munch on. You can also choose boiled or grilled vegetable seasoned with a little olive oil. Consider that each tablespoon of olive oil provides 10 grams of fat and 90 calories.
  At dinner you could eat a portion of meat or fish with raw or cooked vegetables and a portion of bread (50g - 1 3/4 ounce). The proteins you haven't eaten at lunch will be one of the main nutrient in your dinner. Here are the doses per head: 80g (2.8 ounces) long-grain, parboiled rice, 100g (3 1/2 ounces) porcini mushrooms, the amount you prefer of chives and parsley, a pinch of saffron, 300ml (10 fluid ounces or 1 1/3 cup) vegetable stock, 2 teaspoons olive oil and less than half a glass of wine.
  
• - As you can see it's a tomato-free recipe, ideal for people intolerant or alergic to tomatoes.
• - Porcini risotto has only 1.8grams of fiber. The recommended daily value is 30g.

Loretta

What's the right wine ?

Monferrato chiaretto, a red wine from Piedmont, is pefect for mushroom risotto. Some people pair Pinot Nero or Chardonnay too.