Painless Risotto with Lots of Veg
June 10, 2019 | By Jeremy Scheck | Leave a Comment
I don’t know why risotto has the reputation for being extremely laborious or chefy — it really only takes a half hour to make, and it’s actually an ideal weeknight dish. In this recipe, I added canned cannellini beans, blanched asparagus, and roasted tomatoes, but you can add any seasonal vegetables of your choice.
Painless Risotto with Lots of Veg
Ingredients
- 4 cups chicken or vegetable stock
- 1 tablespoon extra virgin olive oil
- 1 tablespoon butter (more later in the list)
- 1 shallot, diced finely
- 1 clove garlic, minced
- Kosher salt and fresh cracked black pepper
- 1 cup arborio rice, or other risotto rice
- 1/2 cup dry white wine (optional)
- Parmigiano Reggiano cheese to taste (around 1/2 cup freshly grated)
- 1 tablespoon butter, cold
- Cooked seasonal vegetables to taste
Instructions
- In a medium saucepan, bring the chicken stock to a simmer; keep warm over low heat.
- Add the olive oil and butter to a large skillet with high sides over medium heat; add the shallot. Cook until translucent, and add the garlic. Season with salt and pepper.
- Add the arborio rice to the shallot and garlic, and toast 1-2 minutes, stirring constantly, until mostly translucent.
Add the wine, and let simmer until mostly boiled away, stirring gently. - With the skillet on medium heat, add the warm stock one ladle at a time, stirring gently but constantly, and waiting until most of the stock is absorbed before adding more. Stop adding stock when the rice is cooked through but still al dente. Add any cooked vegetables before the last ladleful of stock. Add enough stock at the end to have a thick and brothy but not extremely soupy viscosity.
- Turn off the heat, and add the parmigiano reggiano and the butter, stir well for a minute or two to achieve mantecatura, a cohesive glossy finish.
- Serve with extra parmiggiano reggiano cheese and cracked black pepper.
Jeremy Scheck spent high school perfecting his signature cupcakes, making quiches and coffee cake by the dozen at a local bakery, and teaching cooking demonstrations at Williams-Sonoma. As a 10th grader in 2016, he began documenting his favorite recipes on a blog called The After School Bakery. In college, Jeremy learned to make 50 gallons of ice cream in the food science lab, how to prune grape vines in the teaching vineyard, the best way to milk a cow in Northern Italy, and why film photography is an art worth saving. As a sophomore in 2020, he traded blog photos for video and became a TikTok culinary sensation. Jeremy has been featured on the Today show, The Washington Post, Bloomberg, BBC Radio, People, and Access Hollywood, among others. Jeremy is a graduate of Cornell University with a double major in Spanish and Italian, and significant coursework in food science. He lives in Brooklyn, NY. Learn more about Jeremy.