Okay the mushroom risotto is a classic, but here's my take on it, and we got here after a lot of iterations. It's a simple recipe with few ingredients so make sure you get good ingredients.
Ingredients for 2 people:
1. A good Italian risotto rice like Arboreo or Carnaroli - a fistful person, so two.
2. A good extra virgin olive oil
3. Unsalted butter
4. A good chunk of actual Parmesan cheese
5. Your favorite mushrooms. You can get whatever kind you like best - you can mix and match too
6. A medium white onion or a couple of shallots
7. A good white wine - the one you drink is the one you cook with. You can also experiment with Vermouth.
8. Stock - you'll need about a liter. I prefer veggie stock, but you can use chicken or mushroom stock. Beef or others are too strong.
9. Parsley, lime or lemons, a couple of cherry tomatoes, tarragon, basil, rosemary (whatever you're feeling like. This is a garnish, not part of the main risotto)
10. Thyme
Process: This meal takes time and patience to make. So put on a good audiobook or an album before you begin.
In a deep pot heat up a couple of table spoons of olive oil. Finely chop the onions or shallots and throw in them in the pot once the oil has warmed. You want the heat to stay low to medium all the way through - it's all about the slow cooking. Sweat those onions. Add in a couple of sprigs of thyme to flavor the oil. Once the oils release a nice aroma, toss in the rice. Now, you can blanch the rice in cold water for five minutes if you want if the rice looks unclean but this is not necessary from a fresh bag.
Give it a good stir. You'll be stirring a lot to make a nice risotto. Now you want to toast the rice till you get a little bit of browning and a lovely nutty aroma to arise. Don't worry about anything sticking to the bottom of the pan, we'll be deglazing it in a moment. Once the rice is nice and toasted and nutty, usually 5-6 minutes. Now you want to add in the white wine - at least a cup or so. Don't worry, all the alcohol will evaporate. The wine deglazes the pan as you stir it in. Let it reduce and evaporate.
Once most of the wine has evaporated, pour in one ladle of the stock. DO NOT pour in all of the stock at once. This is critical. You're only going to put in one cup at a time and keep stirring till it is all absorbed by the rice. If you don't, you'll get a soft exterior and a hard interior of the rice.
In the mean time, in a pan toss in 3/4th of your mushrooms. Chopped up, torn up mushrooms. Don't worry so much about elegance here. Add a small, about a tea spoon of butter and let the mushrooms release their water. Stir 'em up till the water is gone and the mushrooms have nicely browned from the butter.
Keep going at it on the rice. Add stock, stir, let the rice soak it, repeat. Keep going till there is one ladle of stock left. You will typically need about 1 liter of stock. With the last ladle of stock, drop the cooked mushrooms. This allows the mushrooms to also soak up some of the stock. Once most of the liquid is gone, add about a cup of freshly grate Parmesan cheese and about a tablespoon of the butter. Give it a nice stir... everything should start taking on a beautiful creamy texture. Cover it, turn off the heat and let it sit and chill.
In the meantime, toss in the remaining mushrooms in the heated pan where you cooked your mushrooms. No butter this time. Let them toast nicely and char a bit. Cut up some de-seeded cherry tomatoes, say about 5 into small pieces. It's an odd choice I know, but trust me, the tomatoes add this nice little fresh crunch that make all the difference. Roughly chop up some parsley, tarragon, rosemary, basil... whatever is handy, some olive oil and the juice of half a lemon or lime. Finally add in the toasted mushrooms and give it a nice mix. This is your amazing garnish.
Serve up the risotto on two pre-warmed deep dishes with the garnish and some freshly grated Parmesan and cracked black pepper. It'll knock your socks off :)
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