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ANNE MOONEY: Hi, I'm Anne Mooney. I'm a personal chef in Orlando and Winter Park, Florida,
and I'm here today on behalf of Expert Village to talk about risotto. Now, in the last segment,
we started our risotto and we've cooked it for about 25 minutes, making sure that there
is a film of liquid on top of that rice so that the rice has liquid to absorb. And so
now, we're just about done, and what you can see about this rice that's really important
and how you know that it's done is that the rice has a creamy texture but each grain is
still separate. And you really have to taste it, and when you put it in your mouth and
chew on it, it shouldn't be chalky but it shouldn't be mushy. So there's a lovely creamy
risotto that's ready for us to garnish it with whatever we have hanging around that
might be good in this kind of thing. Now, I have some suggestions and since the risotto
has two more minutes to cook, we have plenty of time to add whatever suits us. Now, somewhere
here, I have some herbs. I actually chopped up parsley and margerum and thyme, I think,
is what I had on hand. So we'll take some of those herbs and mix them in. And I also
had four mushrooms, and that's really what's in here, and that is going to make a huge
difference in this risotto. So we'll just dump those mushrooms in too. And of course,
I have some shredded cheese, and cheese makes everything better, and it goes with white
wine and rice and mushrooms. So we'll just put a little cheese in there, maybe a little
more. Then we'll stir that up. So now, we have a wonderful vegetarian main-dish meal.
I think it needs a little bit more stock here and make sure it stays hot. And you can see
that cheese start to melt and those mushrooms go in there. And then, if you're not on a
diet and you want real comfort food, like anything else, risotto is improved by the
addition of a little butter. A little butter is always a fine thing. So that risotto is
all done and it's ready to eat. Traditionally, you serve risotto in a shallow dish like this.
The dish should be heated. You can just heat it by running warm water on it. But the rice
will cool off fairly quickly because it has a high-starch content, so you want to start
with a hot dish. And we'll serve it, like so. Throw a few more herbs and a little bit
more cheese on top and nobody goes hungry tonight.