Recipe collection

20 warming risotto recipes (including what to do with leftovers)

A great risotto is all about timing and temperature. The time-honoured technique of cooking the rice by adding a little hot liquid at a time, brings out the starch and allows each grain to slowly expand as it absorbs the stock, swelling into tenderness, with just a tiny bite of starch inside.Cook over too high a heat, and you will evaporate your broth before the rice has a chance to absorb it. Too low, and it will take forever to cook the rice.Your stock needs to be hot, because adding cold stock would lower the temperature of the rice and cause uneven cooking. Stir often, but not relentlessly – it's OK to back off now and then. Just stay in the zone, so you can add the broth just before the rice asks for it.Beating in butter and parmesan at the end – a process Italians call the mantecatura, or "mounting", is a clever way to stop the rice cooking even further by introducing something cold, while at the same time enriching it and giving it a glossy finish – Jill Dupleix