Risotto with Bacon and Mushrooms

I'm reposting an older blog post. My wife and I are now trying to live a much more vegetarian lifestyle, for financial, environmental, and cruelty reasons. So don't expect to see a lot more bacon in the future!

Risotto is really easy to make, thought a little time consuming since you have to stay at the oven most of the time to ensure that the liquid doesn’t absorb too fast, or the rice begins to burn.

Here’s what you need:
1 cup Arborio rice
Olive oil (used the glug method, so I don’t have an exact measurement)
1 large onion
Bacon
Chicken broth
Left over broth from a roast (this is why we save and freeze our roast broth; you just shave the fat off the top while it’s still frozen)
2 cups red wine (We used 2005 Epicuro Aglianico Beneventano from Trader Joe’s)
Mushrooms (we use Portobello from Trader Joe’s and just chop them up)

In a separate pot, mix both broths and heat them up. You aren’t cooking them, but rather warming them so they don’t cool down the rice when you add it. Basically you are trying to mix two things at the same temperature. I can't stress enough how much richer the broth from the roast makes this taste! Of course you can use store bought broth and still get great results, but there is something nice about using something you created yourself, and it guarantees that you risotto won't taste the same way twice.

We used the same pan to prepare everything. We chopped up the bacon into little bits and then cooked it in the bottom of the pan. Next we added two glugs of olive oil and the onions. You don’t want these to cook completely; since they are going to be in the hot pan the entire time they will have plenty of time to cook. We added the cup of Arborio rice and make sure that all the rice is coated evenly with oil. Next we added the two cups of wine. Once that’s absorbed you add 2 cups or so of the warm broth. (I say “or so” because we just added to ladles worth, and as far as I could see each ladle was around a cup.)

That’s about it! You just keep adding the broth 2 cups at a time, waiting for the broth to be absorbed before adding the next batch. My wife told me an excellent way to check if the broth has been absorbed enough. Pull your mixing spoon, or spatula, through the rice. If liquid quickly fills in the trough behind the spoon it needs to absorb more, if it doesn’t, or it’s really slow, go ahead and add more. Now what about the mushrooms you may ask? Well since they absorb so much liquid you want to wait until the very end. I didn’t add ours until there was only 2 cups left of broth to go, and they turned out fine. Just keep the risotto on the heat until the mushrooms are at your preferred crispness. We also added some fresh cheddar cheese that we coarsely grated, I like how the cheese thickens and stretches throughout the dish.

Serve immediately in a bowl. We added parsley to garnish, but that was mainly because we had bought parsley for some reason, and thought it would be a nice touch. Surprisingly I thought it was a really great touch, since the light and cool parsley was a nice contrast to the warm and rich risotto. Now is also a good time to use up the rest of your wine too, yum!