Risotto or ironing: need it be a choice?

So, it was a Sunday evening and I wanted to cook risotto for dinner, but I also wanted to get some ironing done and to have time afterwards to relax. To manage all three seemed highly unlikely. 

I have toyed with the idea for several months of trying a baked risotto. ‘Sacrilege!’ I hear some people cry. Well, I guess that depends on whether you’re from the school of alleged Italian cuisine purists or that of metropolitan multitasking housewives. 

I considered the rationale behind making risotto in a pan. As well as preventing sticking, some scientific considerations are taken into account with this method. One, perhaps the more obvious, is that agitation of the rice grains helps to release starch, which creates the characteristic creaminess of risotto. Stirring too vigorously can result in a stodgy risotto, but that’s a discussion for another time. Another reason for pan cooking is that the introduction of stock, which must be hot, in small amounts prevents too much temperature fluctuation in the pan and ensures that that not all the water is absorbed but rather that a proportion evaporates off to ensure a good intensity of flavour from the stock. 

On weighing things up, I decided that cooking in the oven should still provide the necessary heat meet the flavour requirement. Re the creaminess, lots of recipes for baked risotto claim that the result is ‘just as creamy’ as pan-cooked versions. Evidently, this can’t be true if agitation is key, but I decided that starch release would still be sufficient and chose to sacrifice a little creaminess in order to get my relaxation.

I had one more new thing I wanted to try in my risotto. Although I only learned to make risotto of any description quite recently, I can guarantee that adding a little wine noticeably enhances flavour (Vermouth is allegedly very good too). White wine seems the logical choice but I didn’t have any, and I didn’t want to add shopping into the already crowded time equation. Thus, I thought I would try red wine. I investigated a little about using red wine, discovered that I’m not crazy and that’s red wine is quite widely used in northern Italy.

The overall result was delicious. The texture was noticeably different from that of pan-cooked risotto and if you’re a purist you might not like it so much, but we found it very pleasing. Also, I managed to get five shirts and a pair of trousers ironed while it was in the oven and to watch a good film watched afterwards. Magic.

Here’s the recipe I used.

Red wine chicken risotto

Serves 4

300 g Arborio rice

750 ml hot chicken stock

150 ml dry red wine

1 large onion finely chopped

2 sticks celery finely chopped

2 cloves garlic minced

500 g chicken breast meat cubed

150 g frozen peas

25 g butter

50 g parmesan cheese

Olive oil (not extra virgin) for cooking

Heat the oven to 180ºC and heat a large earthenware baking in it ready for the risotto. Cook the chicken pieces through in a little olive oil in a frying pan then set aside in a bowl. Add some more oil to the pan and gently cook the onion, garlic and celery in the pan, stirring occasionally, until the onion has softened and is translucent (c. 5–10 mins); do not allow the ingredients to brown. Add the rice and stir it around until the grains are coated in the oil. Add the wine and stir until most of it has reduced away. Replace the chicken in the pan, add all the stock and bring it to the boil. Remove the hot dish from the oven, tip in all the ingredients straightaway, cover tightly (with tin foil is fine) and replace back in the oven.

After around 15 mins, remove the dish from the oven and stir the risotto. Re-cover and put back in the oven for around 10 mins. Remove the dish again and test the rice. If the rice cooked (soft on the outside but still a little al dente in the middle), add the peas, butter and parmesan, stir, re-cover and place back in the oven for 5 mins. If the rice isn’t quite ready, re-cover and place back in the oven for 5–10 mins more before adding the final ingredients. The drop in temperature resulting from adding the peas does not matter once the rice is cooked, and the dish is replaced in the oven merely to warm through the peas and melt the parmesan and butter.

After 5 mins remove the dish from the oven, stir and serve immediately.