Hi, as many of you know I recently graduated from culinary school. I've been a huge foodie for a while now too... i wanted to use this thread to explain cooking techniques and give out recipes because well everyone ought to know how to cook. Seriously, guys and ladies and ladyboys, it's pretty sexy to cook for your significant other. If you don't eat meat you might want to leave now before I give you dirty looks from across the internets.
First up on my list: Risotto
Risotto is the best way in my opinion to prepare rice. you can use any rice for this but the traditional and in my opinion best rice to use is Arborio. Arborio is a short grain rice. it has the ability to absorb at least 3x it's volume in liquid. In other words, if you use 1 cup of arborio rice (btw... measuring dry ingredients by volume is very silly but we'll let it go for this) it can absorb 3 cups of liquid.
risotto the technique is very simple but it will take between 30-45 minutes to do it right (until you get good at it. at which point you might be able to pinch off 25 minutes)
The technique.
ingredients:
butter UNSALTED (you figure out the amount. unsalted is very important controlling the salt content of your food will help it taste good. )
onion (for a single cup of arborio i would use half of a big white or vidalia onion, never use red. after it's all said and done no one will ever notice the onion)
sharp sharp cook's knife
1 deep sauce pan
1 slight more shallow sauce pan
1 cup of arborio rice
some chopped or whole wild mushrooms
some chopped asparagus (funny smelling pee is awesome)
2 cups chicken stock
1 cup white wine (you figure out what you want to cook with)
optional parmesan cheese or mascarpone
in the slightly more shallow sauce pan pour the wine and stock in and bring it to a boil then turn down to a simmer.
take your onion cut it in half so the knobbly ends are still intact. Turn the knobbly end down. Vertically and horizontally make careful small cuts with a knife ever centimeter or so. don't go all the way through the onion you want the structural integrity to no be terribly compromised. Now, turn that onion sideways and hold the knobbly end. Take your knife and slice or chop (slicing is a sawing motion the moves forward then backwards chopping is straight down) vertically ever centimeter or so... be proud of yourself you just learned how to mince, use your powers wisely.
in your deep sauce pan over medium heat melt your butter. Throw in onions and a dash of salt. you must now sweat the onions. sweating onions is not frying. they should never turn brown (aka caramelize) they just need to get all translucent.
next, throw in the cup of rice. DO NOT WALK AWAY FROM YOUR PAN FROM NOW UNTIL IT IS DONE (or until you get really comfortable with this) turn the heat down to low and slowly stir the rice around to toast the rice. you will see the sides of the arborio become translucent when the majority of the rice looks like this. start pouring in the first of 3 portions of the stockwine. constantly stir (you will unlock an achievement making risotto called "Big beefy stirring arm") until the majority of the liquids have been absorbed add 2nd of 3 portions of liquids. Stir constantly... again (see! achievement almost unlocked) when most of the liquid has been absorbed add in the last of the liquid and asparagus and the shrooms. let the rice absorb the rest. season (this means add pepper and salt til it tastes the way you want it to) plate and serve. (unlock big beefy stirring arm achievement)
Right about now you're probably thinking to yourself..."Kenny why is my rice dish all creamy? i didn't use any cream in this... "
Starch... that's right the starch from the rice has created the creamy awesomeness that is now in your very appreciative gob. you remember that optional cheese i mentioned in the ingredients... you could have thrown it in right at the end.
that's risotto. now you can play around with that. For thanksgiving this year, i made cranberry risotto. i used 2 cups of cranberry juice and 1 cup of stock and i threw in dried cranberries at the end. i have also made rice pudding using coconut milk and confectioner's sugar (cornstarch rules) you are really only limited by your mind.
next time chocolate truffles