I am currently almost at the end of the Divertimenti Cooking With Confidence course and absolutely loving every minute of it. Our teacher Sarah Benjamin (a fabulously energetic chef, importer and now co-author of The Borough Market Cookbook - Meat and Fish) is an absolute star and has been imbueing us with a myriad of useful hints and tips over the last few weeks. One really useful one is how to make risotto in advance. I absolutely love risotto and make it all the time, but in a dinner party setting all that simmering and stirring seems a bit antisocial.
Worry no more though, fellow princesses, it is possible to part-cook your risotto in advance and leave just a couple of minutes of stirring for the night itself. Here are the steps you need to follow:
1 Cook the risotto in the normal way, until 2/3 of the required liquid has been absorbed.
2 Take the risotto off the heat and spread into a baking tray lined with cling film. The thinner the better as we are trying to cool it down rapidly.
3 Put the risotto into the fridge.
4 Once you need to plate up, return the cooled risotto to the pan with the final third of hot stock.
5 Stir until the liquid is absorbed, and the rice is al dente and creamy.
6 Serve to your super-impressed dinner guests.
If you're lacking inspiration on the risotto front, Bear Necessities has a tasty Citrus risotto with garlic chilli prawns, whilst Blogjam has a somewhat scary but nonetheless home-grown Garden snail risotto!
It is also possible to cook risotto in the oven, as ably demonstrated by The Passionate Cook and her Oven baked mushroom risotto.
4 comments:
Cool, thanks for passing on that tip - I've always wondered how they keep risotto warm in restaurants! I have had a lot of horrible risottos eating out that people have cooked to the end and then reheated so I'm guessing this isn't such a well known tip.
I'm trying to do this today. I think I'll try to shoot it, but I don't think it will be as yummy as yours!
Thank you so much for this tip. I tried it tonight with a beetroot risotto for my family when we were getting home about dinnertime and I needed something to be ready fast. It worked quite well, though I did find i needed more liquid than what was left to finish it off. Still, it worked beautifully. Thank you!
Awesome tips on how to make risotto ahead. Very detailed and pretty excellent advices. Kudos
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