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Recipe directions - Tips and menu planning - Healthy eating - What to drink?

Mushroom risotto How-To

Preparation and cooking

• - Clean the mushrooms following our instructions or your experience.
  Anyway follow these simple tips: clean the mushrooms removing any lumps of earth and other impurities with the tip of a knife blade.
  Brush off grit and dirt with a toothbrush.
  Do not rinse them with running water; you could loose their delicate taste!
  Moisten some absorbent kitchen paper and clean them accurately.
• - Cut them into slices or dice if they are large.
• - Put the mushrooms in a large pan with the olive oil and bay leaf and cook over high heat for few minutes, stirring frequently, to reduce the liquid in excess.
  Fungi usually eliminate a bit of water.
• - Meanwhile prepare the stock and dissolve in the saffron.
• - Add the rice to the pan with mushrooms and toast it, stirring with a wooden spoon.
• - Moisten with the wine and let it evaporate over high heat.
• - Start adding a ladle of hot stock.
• - Reduce the heat and let the stock simmer.
• - Continue pouring in the stock, ladle by ladle, until the rice is fully cooked.
  Simultaneously the cooking liquid must be almost completely reduced.
  Remember to keep the stock boiling,
  This is the only difficulty in making risotto.
  For this reason it is recommended not to add the stock all together.
• - Another tip in making risotto: you should not stir the rice too much.
  This is the thought of the greatest Italian chefs.
• - Add the chives and parsley a minute before turning off the stove.

Just before serving

• - When the rice is cooked, turn off the stove and let the risotto rest a couple of minutes.
• - Serve with a little bowl of grated Parmesan.
  So everyone will be able to sprinkle it on the top according to his own taste.

Tips and menu planning

• - You can also use frozen mushrooms or dried ones. You have to cook them in the same way of fresh ones. The dried mushrooms must be soaked.
• - You can substitute the red wine with a little glass of sherry of "Marsala" (kind of Sicilian wine) or "Mirto" (kind of Sardinian liqueur) if your mushrooms don't smell too much. Above all we suggest you this substitution in the case of cultivated mushrooms. Use also a shallot.
• - The amount of stock is highly variable and depends on the type of rice and the same ingredients.
• - If the porcini mushrooms smell well you can use no saffron.
• - If you want you can also add a garlic clove to the other ingredients. We think if the mushrooms are really smelling the garlic tends to cover their scent.
• - Read our blog to know tips and tricks to make a perfect risotto with dried mushrooms

Healthy eating

• - Daily menu. Risotto with porcini mushrooms has few ingredients. It's a low-calorie main dish, perfect for your family lunch in fall. Read its nutrition facts. Complete your menu with seasonal vegetables if you're still hungry. Chicory, fennel or the last bell peppers are perfect to munch on. You can also choose boiled or grilled vegetable seasoned with a little olive oil. Consider that each tablespoon of olive oil provides 10 grams of fat and 90 calories.
  I remember rice should be eaten preferably at lunch and the calories eaten at lunch should be 500 - 700 (30 - 35% of energy needs for an adult if his daily needs are about 2000 calories and he correctly divides his calories into 5 micro-meals).
  At dinner you could eat a portion of meat or fish with raw or cooked vegetables and a portion of bread (50g - 1 3/4 ounce). The proteins you haven't eaten at lunch will be one of the main nutrient in your dinner.
• - Doses per head. 80g (2.8 ounces) long-grain, parboiled rice, 100g (3 1/2 ounces) porcini mushrooms, the amount you prefer of chives and parsley, a pinch of saffron, 300ml (10 fluid ounces or 1 1/3 cup) vegetable stock, 2 teaspoons olive oil and less than half a glass of wine.
  
• - Celebration menu. If you prepare it for a celebration menu don't worry too much about the nutrition facts. It's a rare event.
• - As you can see it's a tomato-free recipe, ideal for people intolerant or alergic to tomatoes.
• - Grape-and-cheese risotto has only 1.8grams of fiber. The recommended daily value is 23g.
• - If you want to drink a glass of wine remember you have to add 80-85 kCal per 100 ml.
• - I remember you our original home recipes can be made without salt. There is always a combination of flavors that substitutes salt. Other no salt recipes ...

By Loretta

What's the right wine for " Mushroom risotto " ?

Monferrato chiaretto: a red wine from Piedmont - Italy.

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