Eat Your Heart Out Gordon Ramsay, Try THIS Risotto! ~ #whof'eduptherisotto?

If you've ever seen an episode of Hell's Kitchen, you're guaranteed to have heard Gordon Ramsay yell at somebody for f'ing up the Risotto. It seems no one knows how to cook it, and these are supposed to be semi-pro chefs, or at bare minimum, aspiring chefs. I have only ever had risotto at a restaurant and figured it was high time I give it a go myself at home. Specifically, a mushroom risotto. You can use any mushrooms you want, really, but portobello seem to be a favorite. So I did those and white button mushrooms. Lets get after it, shall we?

First on the agenda is to soften up the mushrooms. We will be adding them later to the risotto to finish cooking, but this also gives us some mushroom juice which will add another depth of flavor to the risotto.

While the mushrooms are cooking, you'll want to get your chicken stock up to temp. You see, risotto is a type of rice, in this case Arborio rice. Unlike, say, Jasmine rice where you pour a bunch of water on top of the rice in a pot and let the water evaporate while the rice soaks up the water, arborio rice is cooked differently.

Once your mushrooms are cooked off, set them aside with all their delicious juices.

Before we start the cooking process, we need to dice up some shallots and start the base of our risotto.

A touch of olive oil and a hot pan, and throw those babies in there.

Once those are cooked enough, time to throw down the arborio rice.

You want to stir the rice enough to soak up all the remaining olive oil and and shallot juices. Once you can see the rice starting to want to stick to the bottom of the pan while you're stirring, de-glaze the pan with white wine.

This will help clean the bottom of the pan and add more flavor to the risotto. Once the wine is all absorbed, you can start slowly adding in your hot stock one ladle at a time. This is the main difference in cooking this type of rice. You add liquid and stir until it is all absorbed. Then you repeat until the rice is al dente. While this process is happening, and you want to add a protein to your risotto like I did, get your cast iron pan nice and hot with a slab of butter.

One of my favorite cuts is chuck eye steak. It's part of the rib-eye, but the poor mans version. I can't turn down a good deal I tell ya!

Sear it off real good to lock in all those delectable juices.

Back to the risotto, stir, stir, stir!!!

There, perfect! At this point, the rice is almost al dente, but close enough where when we add everything else, it should end up just right.

So turn down the heat to a minimum and add in some butter.

Then your mushrooms and all the juices.

Some chopped green onion.

Then finally some fresh Parmesan cheese which really helps give the risotto that rich thick flavor. The butter of course helps too ;)

Give it all one final good mix to incorporate everything, and voila, mushroom risotto!

And then if you're like me, throw a ridiculous amount of meat on top, eat the whole thing, and feel like a walking burrito for the next four hours. Learn from my mistake, don't eat all this and then try and go into work. You'll be in pain just walking. You'll be burping every other second and everyone will be asking you if you're ok. So if you're going to eat it all, plan on taking a nap right after, or just not moving what so ever.

Cheers to all my #fff #foodies!! Steem on y'all!