The Best Risotto I've Ever Made

Dinner tonight happened by accident. Sunday evening I made a meal consisting of penne pasta and a sauce I made out of crushed San Marzano tomatoes, capers, artichoke hearts and a couple cans of Italian tonno (tuna) in olive oil. Basically I made the sauce in one pot and then made the pasta in another and combined the two and served. Long story short, I had some sauce left over in the fridge and needed something to do with it. As you can probably tell, I've been craving Italian food/starch for the past few days, so I decided to use the sauce in a risotto application. The results were pleasantly surprising.

Basic Risotto Recipe

1 c. arborio or carnaroli rice (carnaroli is better)
4 c. stock or water (I use a 32 oz. box of stock from the market)
1 tbs. olive oil
1 minced shallot
splash of dry white wine (I use dry vermouth, it's cheap and works well)
salt and pepper

Put the stock in a pot and set it to low heat to get it warm. Start the shallot in a heavy pan with the olive oil on low-med. heat. Once the onions have become soft, put the rice in the pan and stir around to make sure all of the grains get coated with the oil (to prevent sticking). As soon as the rice is coated, add a splash of dry white wine to the pan and let the alcohol cook off. Add a ladle full of hot stock to the pan and stir until all of the liquid is absorbed. Repeat this step for about 15-20 minutes. There's not an exact time I can give, it's just something you have to look for. The goal is to have the rice be tender and have an almost creamy texture from the starches being released. There really is a window where it all comes together and unfortunately that window is fleeting. Cook it too long and the risotto will become gummy and unappetizing, cook it too little and the grains with be too hard to eat and the risotto won't come together. After the risotto is done, move it off the heat and add a generous amount of parmegiano-style cheese (whichever you prefer). I hit it with a little Fleur de Sel to heighten the flavor of the finished dish.

So basically what I did tonight was make the basic risotto recipe and stirred in the tuna caper sauce a little at a time until it turned deep orange in color. It was the best risotto I've ever made. The flavors worked very well together, I especially enjoyed the way the briny capers cut through the inherent richness of the risotto. More important than flavor tonight was the texture. I've made some shitty risottos in my time, but tonight's texture was just spot on. In the picture above I threw on some parsley and shaved Grana Padano cheese on top. I prefer using Grana Padano to Parmegiano-Reggiano as a finishing cheese. It's aged about 6 months less than Reggiano and has a bit more of a bright, fruity flavor. It's also about $5 cheaper per pound. Bonus!

Later kids.