A Different Spin On An Old Thing

So it was my mom's birthday and she was all about tasting risotto after seeing it on Hell's Kitchen. I honestly believe that Gordon Ramsay has brought out this new dish a bit through his television show. So, anyways, she wanted it, I did it. So I didn't want to do the EXACT same thing I did this past time, so I changed it up. Here's your list of things to get to have this fabulously tasting dish in your own home. I'd use the same truffle butter recipe from my last truffle risotto, but I added a bit more of the truffle oil than last time.

1 Leek
1 Yellow Onion
3-5 Scallions
2 Large Slices of Red Onions
5 Cloves of Garlic
2 Pounds of Well-Marbled Aged NY Strip
2 Cups Aborio Rice
4 Tablespoons of Olive Oil
8 Cups of Beef Stock
1.5 Cups of Cheap White Wine
.5 Pound of Freshly Grated Parmesan Reggiano
2-3 Black Truffles
Salt & Pepper to Taste

Once again I started off by bringing the broth (This time beef, since I was tying this dish together with beef) to a nice hot simmer - but not a boil in a separate pot. In my Ruffoni copper risotto pan I brought up the gas heat up to a low-medium level. I added my olive oil and let it warm up. I added the aromatics (All the onions) and let them cook up for a few minutes to where the kitchen smelled wonderful while mixing them around. After that I added the garlic, spread it around and let it cook for about two minutes. It doesn't take long for the garlic to cook. One to three minutes, tops before it burns.

At this point I added my rice and cooked it until it was translucent. I added the white wine and let it reduce a bit before ladling in a couple of ladles broth. I add the white wine here because if you add it too late in the process it'll have too strong of a white wine flavor in my opinion. The one big thing at this point is making sure that you're continuously stirring your mixture. At this point I added about a teaspoon of truffle oil into the pan and kept mixing. One of the big things is once you have added the broth is keeping it on a medium high but not so much on the high. You want a nice simmer, but no boil. You also need to make sure you're stirring constantly that way you don't have uneven cooking. Crunchy risotto is never a good thing.

Keep repeating this process, ladle by ladle, until your risotto is soft enough. You really want to keep the broth level slightly above the level of everything else. Once it is soft enough, let the broth reduce out. Add in a nice serving of your cheese. It'll help bring that creamy look in the risotto out.

About the time your risotto starts moving from the crunchy to soft, you want to start your steak. I like my steak medium-rare and if you're eating my cooking at my house: Deal with it or pass the meat. Anyways, pan fry your steak and prep it for getting ready. Once your meat is ready let it sit as one normally would because by this point it's time cut your truffles up and put the finishing touches on the risotto part of the dish. You'll want to mix in your truffle butter mixture well. Afterward, add plate it top it with some more cheese and put your black truffles on top. The meat should be ready to cut now. Put four pieces on each side of your dish and cook and serve.

I really liked this risotto over my last one. A lot of it, I think, had to do with the steak and the fact I used more aromatics. It wasn't as 'basic' as the last one. I had also got a wonderfully marbled NY strip steak from Whole Foods that was insanely expensive but totally worth it. The one thing about Risotto is that it's like pizza. There are a number of different ways one could go about making it. I'm going to try something non-truffle on the next one - maybe another seafood one like I did prior to the start of this lil shindig.

If you have any questions - please feel free to email, Facebook or call me (For those who know my number) and I'll do my best to help you out. This stuff is great! I really hope that if you try this recipe that you enjoy it as much we did!

White Truffle Risotto

This is a pretty simple risotto recipe. It CAN be messed up, but risotto is onea those things that I've found be very temperamental but easy to master.


Risotto

9 Cups of chicken broth
1/8 Cup of olive oil
1 Cup dry white wine
1 yellow onion, chopped nicely
1/4 red onion chopped nicely
4 cloves of garlic minced
2 cups of Arborio rice
1.5 Cups of Parmesan Reggiano

Use a side pot to bring the broth to a simmer.

Heat the pan you plan to cook the risotto to a medium level (Med-High for lower grade cookware) I cook my risotto in the copper Ruffoni risotto pan. If you have the money, great investment, if not, it's definitely not a deal buster.

Spread olive oil around until heated
Insert onions until translucent
Then insert garlic and let cook for a minute or so while
stirring the whole time.

Put in rice and stir. (Get used to stirring, you'll be doing a lot of it if you want it to be cooked evenly)

Once the rice is translucent (Outer area is clear and you can see a little egg on the inside, ladle in a cup of broth and continue to stir. After you put in your first cup of broth, pour in the dry white wine. (Be careful as to not do the whole pushing the cork INTO the bottle trick like how I managed how I pulled off tonight due to rushing.)

Keep stirring to keep everything even while keeping broth always covering the top. It should take 15-20 minutes if you have the heat right.

Once you get down to the last few cups of broth left in your side pot, test it to see if it's still crunchy or not. It should be semi-edible while still crunchy at this point - or it will be softening up quickly - meaning you have about 2-3 cups of broth left in your side pot. At this point I would salt and pepper to taste. (I didn't use much pepper, a couple turns on the mill and about a teaspoon or so of salt).

Keep up with the adding of broth to your while testing until the rice is soft enough to eat normally and let the rest of the broth on top reduce itself off. Insert 3/4 cup (Or so) of the Parmesan and the truffle butter and mix them both in.

Optional - Chop up some black truffles and mix them in after the pan is removed from
the heat.

Serve with fresh grated Parmesan and black truffles (If available in your area - Not a make or breaker, it just adds to the flavor. You can usually find them available online somewhere. I wanted to go all out for the wife tonight so I did both and our local Whole Foods carried them.)


Truffle Butter:

Williams Sonoma offers truffle buttter for around $30 for 2.8oz jar

OR

Mix:
1 stick of unsalted butter
4-5 sprigs of Rosemary finely chopped
4-5 sprigs of thyme leaves finely chopped
2.5-4 tsp of white truffle oil (Depending on how much you like truffles. If this is your first time I'd keep it down to 3) The oil was around $15 at Whole Foods - But I'm sure it'll last me a whole lot longer than W.S. variant.