Basic risotto

Ingredients:

6 cups stock (chicken, vegetable or fish)
1 tbsp butter
2 tbsp olive oil
2 cloves garlic, finely chopped
1 large onion, finely chopped
3 celery sticks, finely chopped
2 cups arborio rice
2 glasses dry white wine
1/4 cup butter
1/2 cup parmesan, freshly grated

Method:

In a saucepan, bring the stock to the boil and place on a backburner of the stove. Keep it just simmering.

In a frying pan, heat the 1 tablespoon of butter and gently fry the onion, garlic and celery adding a pinch of salt for 10 minutes. Take care that it doesn’t brown or burn during this time.

Add the rice to the pan and increase the heat turning the rice over in the oil to coat. In a minute it will start to look translucent and then you add the white wine. Keep stirring.

When the wine has evaporated add the first ladle of stock and keep stirring untill all of the stock has been adborbed. Repeat the process a ladle at a time until all the stock has been used.

Remove from heat and stir in the 1/4 cup of butter and parmesan cheese. Put a lid on the rice and leave to stand for 2 minutes.

Notes:

The idea risotto still has a slight resistence in the grain when cooked correctly.
If you run out of stock before the rice is cooked, just continue using water.
Risotto should have a real creaminess that is is created by the starch in the grain.
You can add anything you like to this basic risotto at the end of cooking. I like to fry a whole lot of different mushrooms in butter and stir those through. You can also take the skin off four Italian sausages and fry them in olive oil and stir them through your risotto with some fresh rocket.
This recipe was created by Jennifer Cheung for Kidspot, New Zealand’s best recipe finder.