Rapido Mushroom Risotto

Purists may sneer at my one-pot risotto cooking method. You, however, will appreciate its rich flavor and 30-minute cooking time.

Rapido Mushoom Risotto is so easy and delicious, it may well become a regular feature on your family dinner rotation. But don’t let its painless preparation keep you from serving it to guests. Go ahead and let them think you labored for hours—you and I know we spent 20 minutes sipping wine and occasionally stirring the pot.

Care must be taken not to overcook risotto—the Arborio rice grains should be soft outside and slightly resistant to the tooth inside.

Rapido Mushroom Risotto

4 tablespoons olive oil
2 cups sliced mushrooms
3 tablespoons grated onion
1½ cups Arborio rice
1/3 cup white wine, room temperature (optional)
4-6 cups hot chicken or vegetable broth
½ cup grated Parmesan cheese
Freshly ground pepper
Salt

1. In heavy pot or Dutch oven, heat 2 tablespoons oil.
2. Sauté mushrooms over medium high flame, stirring often to make sure they don’t burn. Sprinkle with salt and pepper and sauté until they soften and start to become slightly golden—about 3-4 minutes.





3. If you are a lazy cook like me you will use one pot for this dish. So remove and reserve the mushrooms, scraping the Dutch oven with a rubber spatula to remove moisture left by the mushrooms. You may wipe the pot with a paper towel to remove all traces of mushroom.
4. If you are a purist, use a separate heavy pot for the next step.
5. Pour remaining oil into pot and heat. Throw in grated onion, lower flame and fry onion for 2-3 minutes until soft but not brown, see photo below.



6. Pour rice into pot with onion and stir to coat. Lower flame and cook rice and onion another 4-6 minutes until rice becomes slightly translucent, see photo below.



7. If using wine, pour over rice and stir. Lower flame and cook gently until wine almost evaporates. If your children are like mine and don’t like food to taste “winey,” skip the wine when making risotto for family diners and go to next step.
8. Add 1 cup broth—I use Knorr’s Bouillon Cubes and boiling water—and stir risotto. Lower flame to keep risotto at bare simmer, watching carefully and stirring often to avoid scorching the rice, see photo below.





9. When rice has almost absorbed the broth, pour in another cup of broth and stir. Again, watch the rice so it doesn’t dry, and stir often. Continue adding broth—1 cup at a time—and cooking until rice is done. Don’t overcook: rice should have some bite.
10. Stir in Parmesan and a few grindings of pepper.
11. Gently stir in mushrooms and their juices. Serve immediately, passing extra cheese at table.

Serves 4-6