This time I am going to tell you a story of beauty brought straight to the table.
Beautiful in Italian is "bello" and this is what I think about when I want to cook risotto.
Moreover, the dried mushrooms I used this time are Portobello mushrooms.
It was meant to be un bel risotto (a beautiful risotto)!
There are many ways to cook risotto and all of them are correct as long as the result is creamy and tasty. I follow three steps:
1. I personally like to do my mirepoix with the vegetables or the meat I choose for my risotto and slowly add some broth to it when cooking. So, take half an onion, half a carrot and a quarter of celery and fry it slowly with olive oil.
2. In this case, I had to take my portobello mushrooms back to life, before frying.
So, leave them having a bath in a bowl of water for 1 hour and then cut them to start your gluten free recipe.
3. In the meantime, I prepared my broth in a pot of boiling water. The real traditional broth would take hours to cook, hence why I decided to use Knorr Stock Pot. Their range is all gluten-free and, on top of it, there is the Mushroom Stock Pot, perfect for my cause.
So, let me put some order here:
What do you need for one portion of Porto-Bello Risotto?
- 100 grams of Risotto rice
- 30 grams of dried Portobello Mushrooms
- 30 grams of fresh Portobello Mushrooms
- 1 Mushroom Stock Pot
- 1 litre of water (in a pot) - to boil
- 1 glass of Montepulciano D'Abruzzo wine
- Half a carrot, half an onion, a quarter of celery
- Salt (as you please)
The Making:
As I said in point 1: do your mirepoix in a large pan, with fresh veggies listed and olive oil. In the meantime cut your dried mushrooms prepared as in point 2, and add 30 grams of fresh Portobello mushrooms to them.
When your mirepoix is frying, add all the mushrooms. When they are half cooked, is time to add the rice!
In point 3 I explained how I prepare my broth: this is fundamental to add to your risotto while stirring it continuously.
Pour it with a ladle and by the time the rice absorbs the broth, keep going with ladles of broth to give it the best flavour. If you are running out of it, just add some water to the existing broth.
Never stop mixing the broth to the other ingredients and after 20/30 mins (depending on the rice quality) it should be ready!
To give it a stringer flavour, I added a glass of Montepulciano d'Abruzzo (red wine) after 15 mins I put the rice in the pan and a touch of black pepper.
Are you still wondering what made it so BELLO? Sharing it, of course! It was perfect with a glass of the same wine I used to cook it :)