Some risottos are better made with water instead of stock, today we prepare one
ingredients for 4 servings (cost about 3 € pp)
- 240 g carnaroli rice
- A small glass white wine
- 1,2 litre water
- 0,25 g saffron powder
- EV olive oil
- 1 medium onion
- Salt
- 40 gr Parmigiano or Grana cheese
- Zest of 2 oranges
- Fresh rosemary leaves
- Rosemary flowers
There is the false common impression that sofrito, stock and butter are indispensable ingredients of a risotto.
NO, some risottos can be made without the above products as, sometimes we want to omit some aromas or to elevate some others.
Citrus risottos are common in Southern Italy, where many orange and lemon trees are cultivated. Today we will prepare an orange scented risotto with saffron (a perfect pairing for orange ) and rosemary.
Let´s start preparing today´s risotto:
We start our risotto by preparing a sofrito. We cut in very small dice the onion and we gently fry it in EV olive oil for 5 minutes. We also cut the rosemary leaves very very finely, turning them to powder.
In a small pan we lightly toast the rice WITH NO FAT AT ALL and when it is so hot that we cannot touch it in our hands, we pour it into the sofrito pan. We add the wine and then we start cooking the risotto, adding the saffron and the rosemary powder, the zest of one orange, some salt and a ladle of very hot – boiling water, when the liquid starts to get reduced.
While the rice is being prepared, we finely grind the cheese.
When the rice is prepared (al dente of course) we remove the pan from the stove. We taste the salt and, if needed, we add some more.
Stirring constantly we start adding some olive oil (and not the usual butter) and the cheese. We continue stirring until we obtain a very creamy result, we cover the pan with a lid and we let it stand for 3 minutes.
We put in plates and we decorate as shown with the zest of the other orange and the rosemary flowers.
