Pre-cooking risotto

[pacman1978]

Hi,

I would like to know how you pre-cook risotto so that it can be finished off quickly when required. I am an enthusiastic home cook who loves to do fine dining dinners and so would love to be able to simplify the prep of a risotto to allow me more time focusing on other components. I am assuming in restaurants risotto is not cooked to order every single time as it requires so much attention.

Thanks in advance for any advice!

[Twyst]

Cook the risotto 2/3 of the way to finished, then spread it on a cold sheet pan and cool it quickly. When its time to serve add the last bit of liquid and the risotto to your pan and heat it up til it comes together. Its really easy!

Edited November 5, 2012 by Twyst (log)

[Chris Hennes]

Modernist Cuisine advocates par-cooking and then quickly chilling the rice. They par-cook by simmering for six minutes, then cool by spreading it onto a thin layer on a chilled baking sheet. The trick is getting the quantity of liquid right: MC uses 225g of liquid to 100g of rice.

[Paul Kierstead]

I used the MC method last night using Farro. It worked very well. I'll bet it works great with rice too.

[pacman1978]

Thanks for the suggestions everyone. When you say par cooking you literally mean just boiling the rice in liquid for six minutes. Will that allow the starch to be released allowing for a creamy risotto or does that par boiling include constant agiation? I normally use arborio rice if that makes any difference

Thanks twyst - will try doing that and slapping it in the freezer for 10 mins and see how I get on. I once tried that but just stuck it in a tupperware and unsurprisingly it was mushy as clearly kept cooking.

[Chris Hennes]

You don't have to manually agitate the rice, the simmering action is enough. I forgot to mention, drain off the liquid and store it separately before chilling the rice. Add it back in when you are doing the final cooking.

[judiu]

Suggest you pre-chill the sheet pan you'll turn it out on. HTH!

[Alex Parker]

I worked for a place that did just that! We would do it in a pan though. Dry fry it, then add some white wine, let it evap, then start adding stock a ladle at a time until the rice had absorbed enough to make it about 75% done. Cool it on a pan, and your good to go. To finish it, start with some oil, meat first if your doing a meat risotto, some veggies, then throw in the risotto. We would cheat a bit and throw in some cream at the end to finish it off, which within our confines was the only way we could get it out quickly, and retaining a creamy smoothness.

Hope that helps!

Alex Parker

[Bjs229]

I cook mine just as I would be serving ala minute except for cheese. . Get it creamy.. Just take it off about three quarters done on a sheet tray so it cools and still will have bite when brought back.

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