This is a delicious recipe for the classic Italian dish of red wine risotto. The rice isn’t exactly red, its more of a dark brown, but don’t worry, if you want red risotto, I will be posting that recipe soon. Its a roasted red beet risotto, which is one of my all time favorites. Now back to this dish. Red wine risotto is made with a good dry red wine and wonderfully flavorful porcini mushrooms. You can also use white or bella mushrooms, if you cannot find the dried porcinis in your local grocery. However, using the dried Italian mushrooms adds such a wonderful earthy flavor. You start by reconstituting the dried porcinis in hot water. The mushrooms make a wonderful broth that you add to the risotto. I l like to finish the dish with an addition of fresh or frozen spinach for color an added nutrition. You can add shrimp, as shown in the photo, or omit it, and serve the risotto along side grilled salmon, or any other dish of your choice. I love one dish meals, so I just throw some shrimp in at the end for a perfect one pot, easy cleanup meal.

Red Wine Mushroom Risotto Recipe

Ingredients

• 1 package Arborio rice, about 1 1/4 cups
• 1 large sweet onion, diced
• 2 cloves garlic, diced finely
• 1 cup dry red wine
• about 12 leaves fresh basil
• 1 small package dried porcini mushrooms
• 1/2 cup grated Parmesan or Romano cheese
• 1/2 lb fresh or frozen and defrosted spinach
• 2 tablespoons butter
• olive oil
• kosher salt
• About 6 cups chicken stock, simmering
• peeled and deveined thawed shrimp (optional)

Method

1. Bring stock to a boil, and reduce to a simmer.
2. Add porcini mushrooms to a bowl, and pour boiling water over them. Let them reconstitute.
3. Preheat a large skillet. Drizzle with olive oil. Add onions and a little kosher salt. Add Arborio rice, and more olive oil. You will need to add quite a bit of oil, enough so that every bit of the rice is wet with oil. Saute the rice until the edges are translucent. Add garlic.
4. Add the red wine, and stir until the rice absorbs it. Then add enough stock to cover the rice. Turn the heat to low. Stir the rice frequently, to prevent sticking and develop creaminess.
5. Add the mushrooms and their stock, being careful not to add the last bit of stock at the bottom of the bowl. Dried mushrooms almost always have a little sand in them, and we don’t want that in our rice.
6. Continue to add a little stock at a time, as the rice absorbs it, and until the rice is tender.
7. When the rice is tender, and has absorbed the liquid, add shrimp. When the shrimp turn pink, add defrosted or fresh spinach. Stir until wilted. Add butter and cheese. Stir to combine and melt cheese. Finish the dish by stirring in the fresh basil at the very end.

Tags: porcini mushrooms, risotto

This entry was posted on Wednesday, December 23rd, 2009 at 8:00 am and is filed under Italian, Seafood. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a comment, or trackback from your own site.