I find risotto incredibly easy to make, you just have to be standing over the range for about a half hour.
The base of a risotto is ALWAYS the same:
chop onions and garlic finely
sweat them in a pan with olive oil and salt (means on lowish heat so the onions turn transparent not brown)
toss in a the arbrorio rice and stir with the onions and garlic until the rice starts to look a little transparent and loses that starchy look (about 2-5 minutes)
put in a cup of white wine and get the rice to absorb the wine (this is essential)
Ladle in simmering stock in another pan on the range (vegetable or chicken) to cover the rice. Once the rice absorbs the stock so that it isn't covered ladle in some more. I find that one cup of rice you need about 2.5 - 3 cups of stock. If you don't have that much use all the stock you have and then use water.
Once the rice looks puffed and cooked but not mushy (taste them they should be individual grains) put in a bunch of pepper, butter, and parmesan cheese. How decadent and rich you want it to be is up to you. Good risotto should be oozy and creamy so that would imply lots of butter and cheese.
There you go, basic risotto.
You can play around with it endlessly after that. I use celery carrots and onions as the base. Sometimes I throw in diced butternut squash and saffron strands to give the risotto a nice orange colour. You can saute mushrooms and put them in near the end. Etc.
The basic idea to adding other ingredients is to put them in based on their cooking time. So if I was putting asparagus in I'd put them in near the end etc.
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