#when theyre fried in the pan with a lot lot lot of salted butter... maybe soem rosemary... mmmm

[sophiexteresa]

I love potatoes. Even more than garlic bread.

Any kind. And if you feel like it put in thr tags your favorite kind/ why you dont.

[musherum]

okay, so, risotto.

yeah, i know my presentation is lacking, ill work on it

lets talk about how this went.

okay so taste wise? very yummy. texture wise? not quite there. you can see it from the photo but its both too tight and a little watery, like, at the same time. that being said, was still delicious.

so the recipe i used was this one, for mushroom risotto with rosemary and frizzled leeks. i mostly followed the recipe with a couple of variations - i infused a vegetable stock with some dried porcinis and a couple sprigs of rosemary to really dial in the savory taste of the stock. i also mounted with butter in addition to adding parmesan cheese, and i added a little lemon juice.

so, what things didnt go according to plan?

well, the amount of stock. i halved this recipe, and the original recipe called for 4 cups of stock to be on hand. to be on the safe side, i put three on the heat. was not enough. i dont know if it was bubbling off too fast, or what, but three cups didnt get me through it. after the full three cups i still had rice that was slightly chalky. so i ended up using a little cold water from the fridge - i know, i know. but the rice wasnt cooked fully and i couldnt stop stirring to get more stock concentrate and whisk it up with water and put it on to boil and- yadda yadda yadda. i was in a pinch, you understand. in the end, the risotto was still slightly too al dente for me, honestly. so next time, more stock.

in addition there was the flavour of the stock. porcini and rosemary are like my go-to, right now, to make a veggie stock taste rich and robust. but i added i think a little too much - the rosemary and porcini taste was a little overpowering. half as much of each, next time.

next, the mushrooms. they added great flavour to the risotto. but what was not there was the texture. i used maitakes and oysters, two mushrooms that caramelize and brown up fuckin beautifully. but the recipe said to cook em with the leeks, and then once they were done remove 2/3rds of em and add em back in the end. not only did cooking the mushrooms with the sliced leek interfere with the browning of the mushroom (the moisture from the leeks and the crowded pan stopping them from caramelizing and getting crisp and meaty and wonderful), the mushrooms also interfered with the leek - when i went to take 2/3rds of em out, like the recipe said, a lot of the leek and the garlic and the chopped rosemary went with em. it was impossible to remove every scrap of leek and garlic and herb stuck to the mushrooms, and that mightve cost the end product some flavour in the long run. so, in the future, i think ill saute maybe half or 2/3rds of the mushrooms first, to get them crisp and nice, then set them aside and start cooking up the leeks with the rest, reincorporating the browned mushrooms at the very end, or maybe just garnishing with them.

on the topic of leeks: i added some salt at the beginning when i was sauteing the leek, to help it cook down faster. i wonder if that mightve interfered with the ability of the rice to absorb liquid, once i added it to the pan.

also on the topic of leek: the garnish of fried leek tops was very nice. i think it got drowned out by the strongly flavoured stock, but id certainly use them as a garnish again. i might change the form factor though, dice them up finer after theyre done frying, cause as is, they look a little bit pubic, all curled up like they are.

so, yeah. not the worst for my first time ever making a risotto. id still only give myself a C at best, though. now if youll excuse me, i got some wine to finish off