Gourmet Mushroom Risotto At Home

If you could smell this mushroom risotto right now, you'd already be making it. We'll begin by pouring some hot water over some dried porcini mushrooms. These are packed with umami flavor and will help us build that amazing mushroom flavor right from the start. Let these soften now in the warm water for 20 minutes. And 20 minutes later, here we are. Come on, you know I never like to make you wait. Now, we're going to strain our porcini mushrooms to drain off that flavor-packed liquid, which I'm going to save off to the side, and then bring these back to the sink and give them a quick rinse. Now, it's time to chop our mushrooms. We want to chop these up nice and fine. And just remember, the smaller you chop them, the more they're going to spread out throughout your mushroom risotto, giving even amounts of that concentrated flavor. But there's really no right or wrong answer for how finely you chop them. It should really look something like this. Already, with these two simple things right here, we've already built an incredible foundation of flavor for our mushroom risotto. It's time now to make our stock. And just to back up for a second, risotto, all it is, is stock plus rice plus whatever you want to add into it. To begin the stock, I'll start by taking off all of our mushroom stems. As you can see, we have a ton of different types of mushrooms here, and if you can name them all without cheating and write them in the comments below, I will be very impressed. I'll give you all the answers in just a little bit. For now, I'm just going to trim off all the stems. The stems are often a little bit tougher, just not the best and most luxurious part of the mushroom to eat. So, we're just going to use them to build flavor in our stock because they still carry lots and lots of that mushroomy flavor. This here, by the way, is one of my favorite looking mushrooms. It's almost got this sort of fur to it that you can pet like a dog. But I'll give you a little hint if you're still trying to write them all out. This one here is called Lion's Mane. Okay, all our stems go into the pot, and now our leek. I'm just going to take off the leek tops. And look at this. Remember, leeks have a lot of hidden dirt in there, even if they look really clean from the outside. So, just make sure you wash them if you're going to use them in anything. I'm going to save the base of the leek and take the leek tops, and after a quick rinse, cut this into strips. It doesn't really matter too much what size, and drop it into the pot along with those mushroom stems. Then, for our shallot, I'll trim off the stem, peel off all the skin, and surprise, surprise, this goes into the pot as well. Finally, we'll add in our porcini soaking liquid, and then top it all off with some chicken stock, a parmesan cheese rind, which is the chef's secret to getting a super flavorful stock or broth. It is the best thing ever. And a generous pinch of salt. Move this over now to a burner, and set it over medium heat to let this simmer while you prep the rest of your ingredients. First, our mushrooms. As I cut each one, I'll give you the names, and we'll see if you got them all right. The first one is a shiitake mushroom. You may recognize it more if I show you a cross-section like this. In addition to being a classic risotto mushroom and being packed with umami, earthy, and slightly smoky flavors, shiitake mushrooms also work great if you're ever in need of a disguise. Mmm, what am I doing here? Okay, next mushroom. Let's do the lion's mane, since I already told you that one. What's really cool about this mushroom is that you can actually tear it. Doesn't it sort of look like cauliflower on the inside? Some people say lion's mane mushrooms remind them of seafood. Slightly sweet, a little buttery, tender like crab or scallops. I like them mostly because of their unique and fluffy look and texture. It's such a unique mushroom that when you look at it and feel it, it almost might be fake. It's a guy with hair. Lion's mane, done. Our next mushrooms are oyster mushrooms. These are mild with a clean flavor and a silky texture that'll blend beautifully with our creamy risotto. Not much chopping to do there. We'll move on to our maitake mushrooms. These mushrooms are rich, earthy, and woodsy, and they're incredibly good when they're crispy. So keep watching because I have a little trick I'm going to show you that makes your risotto twice as good without much extra effort. And yes, it involves something crispy. Last mushrooms, these are chanterelle mushrooms. They're very light and delicate with a bit of fruitiness and pepperiness as well. If you got all five right, I am very impressed. But be honest in the comments down below. If you got zero, that's okay. Now you know all five. Now for our leek. Very simply, we're going to quarter them up and then slice them into little bits like this. It makes things more fun than using onion every single time when you're cooking. Last thing to chop is our shallot. This is basically a fancy, sweet, mini onion that works perfectly with a risotto. And we want to chop it up here nice and fine. You want them fine enough here that they'll basically end up melting into the risotto. Our prep is done, so let's cook. First, I'm going to move my stock carefully off to the side here. We'll let it keep cooking. And now, into our risotto pot with a little bit of olive oil, I'm going to grab my mushrooms. But remember how I told you I'd teach you a little trick that had to do with something being crispy? I'm going to take about a cup of those mushrooms, try to make sure you get a few of each one, and reserve those off to the side before I then go back here. And working in batches, I'll add in my mushrooms along with a little bit of salt and then toss on a lid to let them sweat. We're doing this in batches because we don't want to overcrowd the pan. We want to give our mushrooms space to cook. As you can see from all the water collecting on our lid, this first step here allows them to release some of that moisture. See that? And then, once the lid's off, we'll just stir them around. If you put them right into the risotto without cooking them like this first, they become really mushy and sometimes a little bit gooey, and we don't want that. Once this batch is done, I'll toss it off to the side and then repeat this same process with our two other batches. This step is so important. Look at all the water that comes off this lid. We're getting all of that out now so the mushrooms don't taste mushy later. These ones are done, so I'll move on to my last batch, but fast forward through this part so you don't have to watch it. It's the same thing again. This next step is my favorite part of my mushroom risotto recipe. We're going to take these reserved mushrooms that we had, add a little olive oil to a pan along with the mushrooms and some salt, and then same thing as last time, lid on for just a minute or two. That's going to help speed up the process of getting rid of some of that moisture, and then lid off. Add another generous amount of olive oil, and then we're going to fry them until they're nice and crispy. This is a great way to get an amazing balance of texture in your risotto. As you know, risotto is very soft and creamy and luxurious, and these are going to be crispy, crunchy, and brittle, and when two things like that come together in food, it makes for an amazing bite. I'm going back and forth between medium and medium-high heat right now, enough to dry the mushrooms out and get them crispy, but not so much heat that they get burnt. Try to find that perfect balance as you cook. Once they're deep golden brown and crispy, set them aside in a bowl lined with paper towels and hit them with a pinch of salt. You should be able to hear that crunch. Listen. To cook our risotto, we'll start with two tablespoons of butter, along with our chopped leeks, our finely chopped shallot, and our chopped porcini mushrooms from earlier. Stir this over medium heat for about 10 minutes or until soft and translucent, while also breaking up any clumps of mushroom in the process to make sure everything is fully mixed. And once your mixture looks something like this, add in some minced garlic. Stirring this for just 30 seconds before then adding in your rice. This here is Arborio rice. It's a short-grain rice that's the number one pick for making risotto. This next step here is called toasting the rice. The goal is to stir enough that you coat every single grain of rice in butter. And this step is what's going to get you a creamy, but still al dente risotto at the very end. As a reminder, we're still doing all this over medium heat, and the key here is to stir, stir, stir. Just when you think you may have stirred enough, do a few more just to be extra safe. Whether you're cooking along with me or just watching, get ready to see one of the best smells you'll ever experience in the kitchen. Adding the white wine here to deglaze the pan. For me, this is the step where it really starts to smell like risotto. Once we see that most of that wine has evaporated, we can switch out our spoon and bring in this one here. This is a risotto spoon. The reason it has a giant hole in it is to break up the rice without crushing it as you stir. And once you start this next part of the process, you can't stop. So be ready to stand here for a while. One ladle at a time, we're going to start moving our hot broth over into our rice. Still working over medium heat. And as soon as that liquid has been fully absorbed by all the rice, you can tell if it's been fully absorbed by dragging your spoon through the rice, and seeing if any liquid fills the path you've cleared, simply go ahead and add in another ladle of broth. It's very important to constantly scrape down the sides of your pan as you stir to make sure you give every grain of rice equal love. And this is why I always say risotto is easy. I'll use an example to explain. You know how when you're cooking pasta, you can easily take a piece of the pasta and taste it and know when it's done? All it takes is one quick bite, and you know when the pasta's been cooked, right? Risotto is no different. It's one of those recipes where you really don't need a recipe to make it. The only real difference here between cooking this risotto and pasta is that instead of cooking this rice in the boiling water, we just add the boiling water to the rice until it's done. And I bet if I asked any of you watching to taste some rice and tell me if it's cooked properly, most of you could probably do it without a problem. I just think that's an important thing to say, because if you've ever been scared to make risotto, but then you think about it like that, it suddenly becomes a little bit less complicated. A natural follow-up question to everything I just said might be, how do you know when a grain of rice is perfectly cooked? Well, aside from just taking a simple taste like this, where just from that first bite you can already tell it needs a few more minutes, if you take just a single grain of rice and bite it in half, you'll see that there's a little white spot on the inside. And I can see right now that that white spot is too big, but once you get it to the point that it's only a tiny little white dot, that signals that your rice is al dente. It might seem a little strange that we cook risotto this way when every other rice dish seems to be cooked in a completely different manner. The reason is simple and pretty similar to what we talked about before. We cook it this way because slowly adding in that hot stock and stirring releases just enough of the starch from the rice to make it perfectly creamy while still allowing each grain to stay al dente. And the process doesn't take too terribly long either, it's only about 18 to 20 minutes and then your risotto is done, which reminds me that ours is probably only a minute or two away. You see how beautifully creamy this is without having added any kind of cream or cheese? That is the magic of risotto. One last little splash of broth and I think our risotto is going to be perfect. I probably tasted this about 15 or 20 times as I was cooking. Just small little bites like this is all you need. I want you to get one more quick look at how creamy and silky this is. We have not added anything but those few bits of butter at the start. All that creaminess comes from the combination of that starch in the rice as well as that stock we made to get this silky risotto goodness. But with that said, we do turn off the heat now and add in a few tablespoons of butter, which will mix and let melt into the risotto, as well as some freshly grated parmesan cheese, some fresh cracked black pepper, and a little pinch of salt if you think you need it. If you think it's starting to get dry at all, add in a little bit more broth, that'll get it nice and creamy again, and mix that all up. As a final step, we're going to add in all of our mushrooms, aside from the crispy ones, as well as one extra little splash of broth, and then fold all of this together. And now get it on the plate quick. I'll add my risotto down onto the plate, we want to be quick because risotto can seize up very quickly. Then spread across all of those beautiful, crispy mushrooms. We don't have any more time right now to joke about a mushroom mustache. Then I'll sprinkle down a few fresh chopped chives, freshly grated parmesan cheese, a light dusting of fresh cracked pepper, and to finish, my favorite, a touch of lemon zest, just to brighten things up. And like I said earlier, if you could smell this right now, you'd already be making it. Oh, by the way, I'm not eating that one. I'm eating this one. Mmm.