risotto, interrupted

January 14, 2006 6:53 PM

I'm looking for restaurant-style instructions for making risotto, i.e. where you cook it partially, then hold until service and finish it quickly to order.

I make risotto fairly regularly for myself, but usually shy away from it when I have guests because it is so time (and attention) consuming and needs to be cooked just before serving. I know I've seen tips for stopping midway through the cooking process, but can't remember exactly when I'm supposed to stop. And then once I stop, should I refrigerate after that, or keep it warm? Also, how long can I hold it before finishing?

My google-fu can't filter out the millions of standard risotto recipes out there.

posted by rorycberger to food & drink (9 comments total)

I don't know the answer, but if no one else does either, try asking here.
posted by teem at 6:59 PM on January 14, 2006

One better: Discussed here.
posted by teem at 7:03 PM on January 14, 2006

Generally, there's a reason you don't see it on restaurant menu's particularly often. It will suffer from holding, at least a bit, and get gluey.
posted by generichuman at 7:26 PM on January 14, 2006

Thanks teem, that is perfect!
posted by rorycberger at 7:27 PM on January 14, 2006

I noticed, when traveling in Italy, that most of the rissotto available in restaurants was sea food - type dishes that could be assembled from half-finished rice without expecting it to morph into the "creamy rissotto" stage, and are not expected to be prepared with either butter or cheese.

Mostly, rissotto is a home meal, at least in Milan. Fine restaurants that serve it often have one cook whose sole job is to prepare rissotto.
posted by zaelic at 5:02 AM on January 15, 2006

Try making it in a microwave. It is almost as good as on the stove and the effort and attention are about one tenth. Take your favorite risotto recipe and start by cooking the rice, the onions and other such ingredients in olive oil in your microwave dish in the microwave. Add about one half to two thirds of your stock (which can be cold, but prewarmed stock goes a little faster) and heat on high, stirring about every five minutes. I leave the lid on the dish until it boils and then go with the lid off. As you get close start adding more stock at the end. Incorporate cheeses at the very end.

The advantage of a microwave is that it does not create hot spots like on the bottom of a saucepan so you do not need the constant stirring.
posted by caddis at 6:01 AM on January 15, 2006

If you go back to eGullet and search around a bit more, there was a discussion a few years ago about making it in a pressure cooker, which if done properly, could allow you to prepare it from scratch in the time it takes to finish a pre-cooked version. I have some vague memory of attempting this once and it not blowing my mind, but I'm not sure.
posted by rxrfrx at 7:40 AM on January 15, 2006

A tried and tested method from my Italian side of the family is cooking only the "base" beforehand, where the base is the whole process of slowly "sweating" the onions in butter, or a mix of butter and olive oil, on a very low heat for about ten to fifteen minutes, then adding the rice and toasting it slightly with the heat up for a couple of minutes, then adding the wine and letting it evaporate, also on a high heat. At that point, you stop the cooking before adding any broth -- just turn off the heat, let the base cool, then cover it with a lid and leave it there for a few hours until it's time to finish the risotto: bring the broth to the boil, put the pan back on moderate heat, proceed as usual, adding any other ingredients (saffron, mushrooms, vegetables etc.) later, about mid-way, after you've already added some broth. It'll take about ten or twelve minutes. It's not instant risotto, but it'll be quicker than doing the whole thing in one go. And it makes no difference to taste or consistency.

(Apparently it's better to interrupt the cooking before adding the broth because the rice will still be largely uncooked and dry, so it'll keep crunchy when you resume cooking, but at the same time it'll be nicely toasted and ready to absorb the broth, so the process will be quicker).

The pressure cooker method (after preparing that base in the normal way) can be just as good, but you have to experiment a few times to find the exact amount of liquid you need to put in the cooker. That's the more difficult part, because in the standard method you just adjust the quantity of broth based on tasting the rice and how creamy you want it and so on, so you don't need to know exactly how much you'll need beforehand. With a pressure cooker you don't have that margin of improvisation.
posted by funambulist at 8:41 AM on January 15, 2006

PS, to emphasize in response to your last two questions:

- once you stop, you do not need to refrigerate at all, or keep it warm either (which would make the rice go too soft), again just leave it in the pan with a lid on after it's cooled off a little, so there's no steam inside

- you can leave it there even four or five hours before finishing, it's no problem as the rice is still not really cooked (it will only have been toasted and gone softer - you can see it's become transparent - on the outside)
posted by funambulist at 8:52 AM on January 15, 2006