Cooking Risotto 101

My first ResGrad cooking lesson was this past Monday. And I was so excited to cook a traditional Italian meal and eat it, of course!! Creamy risotto was what we were cooking. The ResGrad, Alex, was going to teach us how to cook two types of risotto, giving lots of TLC (tender loving care!) to the dish: creamy mushroom and sweet pea fennel. Fennel is the vegetable that kind of resembles an oversized onion, but it actually tasted kind of like black licorice celery, and since I'm not a huge fan of black licorice, I didn't think I would like that type of risotto. But I was up for cooking the creamy mushroom risotto because we all know I loooooveeeeee mushrooms. :)

So anyways, after waiting for more people to show up for the cooking lesson, my roommate Kelly and I helped set up the kitchen, etc. We were designated as the official stirrers, since you have to constantly stir the rice so that it doesn't stick to the bottom of the pan. And for this Italian rice dish, you don't steam the rice (usually hows Asians and Americans prepare the rice)- instead, you cook it in a little bit of olive oil, then add some rice, and then slowly add some type of broth- that night, we used a mushroom broth for both types of risotto. You add several spoonfuls of broth to the rice until it is absorbed into the risotto as you continue to stir it. Adding some white wine always makes the dish a little bit sweeter. Once the rice is cooked, add the additional ingredient (aka the mushrooms or the fennel and sweet peas) and voila- the meal is ready to eat. Kelly and I deserved some white wine for being such good stirrers and laboring over the heat of the stove. I think a little bit of my risotto stuck to the bottom- I guess I will learn to stir a little bit more next time. But the only way to learn how to cook is to practice, so I'll have to make risotto again sometime soon. Both types of risotto were delicious, by the way!! Even though I didn't think I would like the fennel, I tried it and it was pretty tasty. :) Cooking Risotto 101: I passed with flying colors. I'm off to Barcelona, Spain this weekend- can't wait to tell you all about when I return to Roma!!