Hey guys, you know what, I’ve been getting some emails or comments on my videos saying that they’re too cheesy. So I thought, do I need to be more cool?

No, it’s definitely not going to work. That’s not me at all. Then I thought, well heck extra cheese is always good. Maybe I should add more cheese. “Do you like Risotto?” So, do I. Let’s get busy and make some. Now, I don’t think we want to go there.

Today, we’re making Risotto with Mushrooms. The Porcini Mushroom is the classic addition to this dish but today I’m using crimini mushrooms which you can find in your market. They’re also known as Italian brown mushrooms and they’re basically a small Baby Portabella Mushroom.

For this recipe, we’re using one and a half cups of Arborio rice, one cup of finely diced onion and I want them to be about the same size as the rice, a cup of grated Parmesan that we’re going to throw in last, two ounces of butter, two cups of sliced mushrooms, half a cup of dried white wine and we’re going to throw a little minced clove of garlic in there. We’re also going to need about eight cups of stock. And I’m using chicken stock. If you want to use vegetable stock, that’s fine, or water works too.

I have my nice heavy gauge sauté pan on medium high and we’re going to start by adding the butter and sautéing the onion. I have a video titled Robert Spatula so go check it out. It’s great to have one of these high temp spatulas on him especially for this kind of jobs.

Now, I add the mushrooms and I’m going to sauté this down, all right—a little bit translucent so now I’m going to add the garlic, stir that around and then we’re going to dump in the rice and sauté that for about two minutes.

When making Risotto, you have to use Arborio Rice. It has a high starch content which gives it that classic creamy texture. After sautéing everything for about five minutes, we’re going to add the wine and we’re going to stir this around with the wine took off them and we’re going to slowly start adding our chicken stock to this dish.

Risotto is a dish that you can‘t walk away from. You got to continually add the stock until it gets to that creamy texture and you got to stir it all the while. And as you’re stirring it, make sure none of this little rice stick to the side of your pan because then they won’t cook and they’ll actually get stirred into the soft mix and somebody’s going to bite into a hard uncooked rice so that’s never fun.

For all you vegetarians out there, Risotto was a great dish because you can add so many different types of vegetables to it. Asparagus tips, summer squash, fava beans. You name and it pretty much goes in here. You can see how this is drying up and it’s pretty sticky. This is what you want it to look like before you add your stock. And at this point you might want to turn off your heat just a little bit. You just want to keep stirring this so it doesn’t stick to the pan while it’s cooking.

And everytime I add—on having four ounces after about 25 minutes, it’s going to start to have the consistency of oatmeal and you still wanted to be soft but firm to the tooth. We’re getting close. After this last label of stock is absorbed, we’re going to stir in the cheese and we’re ready to eat. And I haven’t quite used up all the broth so eight cups should work for you. And I’m going to stir in about a half a teaspoon of fresh cracked pepper and give it a taste. Good. You don’t usually have to add salt because your stock will have salt in it and so is the Parmesan so we’re good, creamy cheesy mushroom risotto.

I hope you enjoyed this warm and hearty classic dish from Northern Italy. Thanks for tuning in.