Mushroom Risotto

There aren’t many things in the world that can be brought back from the dead. If you have a plant but neglect to water it for a few months, it’ll most likely be dead. All the water in the world will not bring it back. Luckily, blogs are a far hardier breed of creatures. I’ve never meant to let it die, but here it is, it’s back with just a few swypes at the keyboard! The moral of the story is, if you are an irresponsible human being like me, keep a blog, not a plant (or even worse, a baby).

Anyways, let us start out with something that is both simple and tastes fucking amazing: mushroom risotto. If you ever want to really impress someone who has no idea how to cook without too much effort or money, this is what you will want to make.


A picture of the ingredients you need, and a lot of inedible stuff you don’t need. For example, that door knob in the back? It will never be used in this dish. At all.

1 cup arborio rice
1 can (or more) of chicken stock*
1/2 pounds mushrooms**
1 medium yellow onion
3 tbsp olive oil
2 cloves garlic
1 tbsp butter
2/3 cup dry white wine
water (optional)
3 tbsp parmesan cheese

*You can use water on top of the 1 can of chicken stock, or all chicken stock to make this dish extra flavorful.
**Button or brown mushrooms are the common choice. If you are well off you can get fancy with wild mushrooms.


Start by doing a medium (1 cm, 1/3 inch) dice on your onions, mincing your garlic, and slicing your mushrooms. You will be spending a lot of time at the stove later on, so do your prep ahead of time.

This type of dish is known in the US as jenyoo-wahhn eye-talian. Which means real Italians might jump off a cliff upon seeing it.

Heat a pot to medium high heat with a tablespoon and a half of olive oil. When the oil is just starting to smoke, add the onion. Cook it for 2-3 minutes until it is translucent but not brown (stir the onion every once in a while to prevent browning). Add garlic and cook for another minute. Add the rice and continue to cook for 2-3 minutes, stirring to avoid browning.

The first Italian style dish I blog about just happens to have rice in it. ASIAN 4 LYFE.

Pour your white wine into the pot. Stir constantly and make sure that the heat is high enough (high heat for electric ranges, medium to medium high on gas stoves) that the liquid is always simmering. Cook until the liquid has almost all evaporated, and add your chicken stock 1/3 of a can at a time, each time stirring until the liquid has almost all evaporated.

Some more Pulitzer quality photos of the action for you.

You will want to repeat the process, using water if you run out of stock, until the rice is cooked through tender and the sauce is creamy. A professional chef can do this in 20 minutes. It took me about 30 minutes, but what matters is that you achieve the right consistency. When the rice is close to finishing (or finished if you don’t feel like multitasking, since the rice can’t be easily overcooked), start sauteing your mushrooms. The mushrooms will take about 5 minutes.

This may look like a lot of mushrooms, but there’s no shroom for error here, so don’t squander them.

Heat a pan with 1 1/2 tablespoons of olive oil and 1 tablespoon of butter on medium-high to high heat. When the butter foams and the foam subsides, add your mushrooms. Toss the mushrooms for about 5 minutes until it is cooked through (make sure that there is no water in the bottom of the pan; if you see water accumulating, turn the heat up). Salt and pepper to taste.

Now that your mushrooms and the risotto are both almost done, dump your mushrooms into your risotto. The reason why you do not cook the mushrooms with the risotto is because mushrooms taste far better when they are sauteed instead of boiled along with the rice. Salt and pepper to taste, taking into consideration the salt content of the chicken stock and the cheese you are about to add. Turn off the heat and stir the parmesan cheese into the risotto. Serve hot.

Don’t worry if your cheese is not luminescent like mine is. We can’t all have shitty cameras be angels from the fifth dimension.


I could tell you about how delicious it is, but you’re probably thinking it looks like it could have come from a bukkake convention. Or maybe only I was thinking of that. But now you’re also thinking of that (if you don’t know what it is, don’t google it).

This is actually a dish I’ve made once before, so I knew it would taste good before I made it for the blog. And it is amazing for how easy it is to make. There is a burst of flavor in every bite, yet the dish isn’t so powerful that you are overwhelmed after only a few bites. It makes for a fantastic main course or a starch component of a bigger course. Oftentimes, simplicity done right is better than complexity done mediocrely.

Until next time, remember that risotto, like pasta, is just shit the Italians took from the Chinese and made better. They were the original bootleggers.