Getting Fancy With Risotto

About author / Sarah Christine Bolton

Coffee addict; professional food writer; food fusion. Her slow cooker recipes go above and beyond your normal crockpot fare.

For my recent birthday, my husband cooked boiled lobsters and sautéed scallops. Even though I hate to see them alive, and have to leave the room when it’s time to toss them into the pot of boiling water, I do love to eat lobsters. Like all shellfish, the very act of cracking the shell and scooping out the meat is a sort of treasure hunt. The anticipation that builds up during the whole process makes the final, buttery mouthful all the more spectacular and delicious.

Lobster is definitely one of those once-a-year treats, mainly because of the cost, but also because of all the work involved. Lots of other “fancy” dishes, though, can be enjoyed several times a year. Take risotto for example. Risotto is one of those words you hear, you might see on a menu, you maybe even order, but you might not be completely sure about what it is. So, I did what every good food researcher does. I Googled it.

I discovered that even though risotto is basically just a fancy way to cook rice, it has connotations of being a rather upscale side dish. Plan a meal of simple chicken breasts, but serve them over risotto, and suddenly, your very-cool-cook points have gone up considerably.

It is thought that rice found its way to Italy via the Arabs. They probably got it from Asia. In the Italian Po Valley, rice flourished in the perfect environment and climate: flat lands, abundance of water, and humidity.

Risotto is a traditional Italian dish that originated in North Italy and is made with specific varieties of rice. The legend of how risotto got started goes all the way back to 1574. The magnificent Gothic cathedral the Duomo di Milano was being built in Lombardy in Northern Italy. A young apprentice named Valerius was staining the decorated glass for the windows and was getting teased because it looked like he added saffron to the paint pigments to obtain a more brilliant color. He got fed up with the teasing and added saffron to the rice in retaliation. Unfortunately, the joke backfired on him when everyone ended up loving the new addition to their staple dish, and the recipe spread quickly all throughout Italy.

Whether or not it’s true, it’s a cool story. And regardless of whether you think poor Valerius got to play out his joke, make sure to choose the proper type of rice when making risotto. There are three types that work well: carnaroli, vialone nano and arborio. All these are short grain rices that swell and absorb enormous amounts of liquid without becoming mushy.

The traditional preparation of risotto actually includes sautéing the rice in olive oil, boiling it in broth, and mixing in lumps of cold butter and grated Parmesan cheese just before serving. Making it in the crockpot won’t achieve quite the same gourmet outcome. But hey, it still tastes good and it still sounds fancy, so just go with it.

Serves/Makes: 6

• 2 cups long grain brown rice
• 2 cans (14 ounce size) vegetable stock
• 1 can (10.75 ounce size) condensed cream of mushroom soup
• 1 package sliced fresh mushrooms
• salt and pepper
• 2 teaspoons chopped fresh basil