Risotto ai Funghi

Risotto ai funghi is a northern Italian rice dish built around mushrooms — porcini above all — cooked into short-grain rice with broth until creamy, without cream.

What it really is

Short-grain rice — Carnaroli, Arborio or Vialone Nano — is toasted in butter with finely chopped onion, then wetted with white wine. Hot broth follows a ladle at a time, stirred in as the rice takes each addition up. The method makes any risotto; the mushrooms make this one.

Porcini carry the dish. Fresh, they are around for a few weeks in autumn; the rest of the year they are used dried and soaked, and the soaking liquid goes into the broth. Cultivated mushrooms are often sautéed separately with garlic and folded in for body.

Off the heat, cold butter and grated Parmigiano Reggiano are beaten through — the mantecatura. The texture to aim for is all'onda: loose enough to ripple when the plate is tapped.

How it is served

• Immediately, cooked to order; around eighteen minutes, and it cannot be held.
• Spread flat as a first course, scattered with parsley.

How to write it on the menu

• Say which mushrooms: porcini, mixed wild or cultivated. Guests read "funghi" as porcini.
• Name the broth — it decides whether the dish is vegetarian.
• Gluten-free, but it contains dairy and the wine leaves sulphites.

The ingredients, allergens and dietary notes listed here describe a typical recipe. They are not a binding declaration for any particular restaurant: recipes, portion sizes and the products used can differ.