Ever wonder how restaurants serve risotto so fast? The secret is that the rice is pre-cooked. I've made risotto in restaurants for over 15 years working under 3 different chefs from Italy, so I know a thing or two I can share with you.
I love risotto and view it as a wonderful vehicle for leftovers and as a way to showcase particular ingredients and relive classic dishes, like Risotto Sbiraglia and Risotto Milanese.
If you've ever wondered how fancy Italian restaurants serve risotto so quickly, it's because the restaurant is pre-cooking and cooling their risotto before service.
Pre-cooking the rice gives more control to the chef, helping them make sure the rice is done perfectly, and neither over or undercooked.
At every restaurant I've worked at that serves risotto, we would do this by pre cooking your risotto rice with a bit of onion, wine, water or stock and pinch of salt, and I do it now in my restaurant.
For home cooks this can mean the difference between standing in front of the stove stirring and sweating, and relaxing and chatting with guests or your family. When the risotto rice is par cooked, it's effortless to put together-a chef's trick you can keep to yourself. Here's how to do it.
How to Par-Cook Risotto Rice
First, you cook a small amount of diced onion in olive oil and cook until translucent.
Next you add the risotto rice and cook for 1-2 minutes, stirring to coat the rice with oil.
After a few minutes you add a splash of wine. If you need to, you can skip it and just add stock or broth.
After the wine is added you'll begin adding ladles of hot stock, about 6 oz at a time.
Wait until the stock has been absorbed before adding another ladle.
When the rice has absorbed about half of the total cooking liquid (about 2 cups) it will be roughly half cooked.
Next the rice is spread on a baking sheet or tray to cool. Cut grooves in the rice with a spatula to help steam escape.
Store your pre-cooked risotto rice in the fridge in a sealed container until you need it for whatever risotto you're making.
How to tell when the rice is done
You want the rice more than half way cooked, but it should still remain bit raw in the middle. The outer portion of the rice kernel will be softened, but the inside will still have raw, bright white, when cut in half by a knife.
When risotto is precooked to the perfect doneness, you get more control over the texture of the rice, it will have a few minutes of cooking time left in it when reheated.
Types of risotto rice
Another trick is making sure you have the correct type of rice, only one of the following 5 should be used to make risotto.
1cuprice type of your choice for true risottoChoose from one of the above types
2tablespoonbutter or oil
Pinchof salt
¼cupwhite or yellow oniondiced small
¼cupdry white wine
4cupschicken stock, vegetable stock, etc you will need only 2 cups to par-cook the rice
Instructions
Pre-Cook the Rice
Sweat the butter and onion together with a pinch of salt until the onion is translucent, then add the rice, and stir to coat the grains with fat, cooking until they are a bit translucent on the outside, about 2-3 minutes, then add the wine and cook until it has almost all evaporated.
Now, add a ½ cup of water to the pan at a time, and continue to cook and stir until it is incorporated, then add a new ladle of water to prevent the pan from scorching. Keep doing this until the rice is soft on the outside, but still raw and very chewy in the middle, about ten minutes.
When the rice is precooked to your liking, immediately spread it out on a wide surface, then score with a wooden spoon in a cross-hatch pattern it to help it cool even faster.
Finishing and Serving the Risotto
To finish and serve, put the pre-cooked rice in a pan and begin adding stock again. Continue to cook, adding liquid or stock as necessary until the rice is very hot, and tender, but not mushy, about 5 minutes depending on how far you take your risotto rice in the previous method.
Stir in 3 tablespoon of butter and ½ cup of grated Grana Padano, Parmigiano Reggiano, or another grated parmesan.
Video
Notes
This is only a recipe for pre-cooking the rice. The type of risotto you make afterward is up to you.
If you want to make your risotto ahead and serve it later, follow the recipe up to the final addition of stock, and then STOP. The risotto will be slightly undercooked. To re-warm, you just add the last ladle of stock, then the cream and cheese.
In his post, López-Alt writes that the speediness of restaurant risotto boils down to the fact that chefs “par-cook it to around 75 per cent done then cool it rapidly by spreading it in a thin layer on a sheet tray and refrigerating it”.
If you are going to use it within the hour, just slid it to the back of the stove, no heat, and let it sit. If you are making well in advance, place in a shallow baking pan and cover. Refrigerate until ready to serve. The rice can be prepared to this point up to 3 days in advance.
Add a small amount of broth or water to the risotto to restore moisture. Heat the risotto over low to medium-low heat. Stir frequently to ensure even heating and prevent sticking. Once the risotto is heated through and has regained its creamy consistency, remove it from the heat and serve.
Just store it in an airtight container and it will be good for up to five days. One caveat: If it contains meat, like this sausage and tomato risotto, it's better to keep it for up to just three days.
Warming the broth before adding it to the warm rice coaxes more starch out of each grain of rice and helps prevent it from overcooking. Cool broth takes longer to warm up in the risotto pan and may shock the grain into holding onto its starches while the rice itself continues to cook.
Risotto in Italy is often a first course (primo), served before a second course (secondo), but risotto alla milanese is often served with ossobuco alla milanese as a one-course meal.
The problem comes when rice is left to cool slowly and the bacteria go into overdrive, specifically between the temperatures of 28ºC and 35ºC. The longer the rice remains left out of temperature control once cooked and is not adequately cooled and refrigerated, the greater the risk.
"Don't stress about constantly stirring risotto," Salvatore says. "It's much better to stir once every 30 seconds and trust the cooking process to do its thing." Over-stirring is one way to quickly ruin a risotto's texture.
*If you're cooking your risotto in a pressure cooker, just cut the cooking time down by about 25%, and leave out the last spoonful of liquid. Once it's cooled, you can transfer that half-cooked risotto to sealed containers and keep it in the fridge for up to a week.
Generally, risotto isn't prepared ahead of time – because the best risotto is served fresh – but if you want to make it in advance, proceed as explained above, but stop cooking a few minutes before (when the grain is chewy but still crunchy in the middle).
Depends if risotto is the main dish or a side dish. Usually it is a main dish. If it was the main dish, I would start with 1 US cup measure of raw rice per person. If it was a side, I would serve half this quantity.
*If you're cooking your risotto in a pressure cooker, just cut the cooking time down by about 25%, and leave out the last spoonful of liquid. Once it's cooled, you can transfer that half-cooked risotto to sealed containers and keep it in the fridge for up to a week.
Never reheat risotto or any other rice dish twice. It increased the risk of possible Bacillus cereus bacteria growth that can cause food poisoning. Place the risotto leftovers in the fridge as soon as possible. Through it out if the risotto doesn't look or smell right or if it has been left out for more than 2 hours.
You should only reheat your risotto once. Once the food is heated, you need to eat it straight away or else it might grow bacteria. You surely do not want to be getting food poisoning, especially if the risotto has meat or fish in it.
According to Salvatore, the trick is in the timing. The chef spends 16 minutes exactly focusing just on feeding risotto with stock or water, eyeing the rice while it simmers to ensure that the liquid is slowly plumping the grains rather than quickly drying them out.
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