Risottos have reputation of being difficult to prepare. However, here is the thing: Risottos aren’t difficult at all. In fact, they are quite simple and easy to make. Of course there is a complex technique required to do it but that doesn’t mean that they are difficult.
Having a pressure cooker seriously reduces down the difficulty level when it comes to preparing risottos. One reason that risottos are considered difficult to prepare is that they are really time consuming. This is why people think it is too complex a process to make risottos. However, a pressure cooker just does the job. Pressure cookers have the reputation of being the fast cookers because of their ability to capture all the steam and pressure inside the container which is essential to cook a dish.
In this article today, we are going to discuss how you can prepare a mushroom risotto at really high speed with of course a pressure cooker. This dish cooks in minutes so there is no waiting game that you will have to play with your risottos anymore.
What’s the Dish?
The dish we are going to talk about today is Butternut Squash Risotto prepared through a pressure cooker. This recipe will take as long as just five minutes to prepare. Other recipes tend to take longer because there is pureeing involved in them.
One thing is for certain, after trying out this recipe, there will be no other way you would want to cook a risotto anymore. It’s fast, it’s efficient and it has all the right things you want to have in a risotto.
First of all, this dish will have intense mushroom flavor. One thing which is great about this recipe is that is doesn’t involve extra containers and pots so you don’t really have to do extra cleaning once you are done with the dish.
You can go for a hundred of mushrooms at once. We are going to use a pound of mushroom because we want a mushroom dense risotto. You can also go for the supporting ingredients such as cremini oysters etc. but that is totally dependent on what texture you prefer.
In many of mushroom recipes, you will find simple mushroom pan fried and added to rice. It doesn’t actually give a feel of risottos. In fact it is just rice with mushroom hidden inside them. We wanted to do something different this time around. Our idea of this mushroom-packed risotto is to fuse in the flavor of mushrooms to the risotto. For this purpose, we are going to use broth as we fry them with dry mushrooms to get more flavor.
For this infusion, the fastest way we could think of was using a microwave. When it starts simmering, simply chop them a knife and get them in your risotto. Since they are hot and softer, they will infuse quicker into your risotto. Not only the risotto but it will also add flavor to the broth, you have just successfully avoided boiling your mushrooms with broth and saved quite a bit of time through your microwave.
You may further add different types of mushrooms to your risotto during the process as you continue with your 5 minute recipe.
Adding Mushroom Tea
You don’t have to be surprised upon this addition of flavor to our recipe. A mushroom tea is made just the way you prepare tea. It’s just that instead of leaves you will have to deal with mushrooms this time around. Mushroom tea won’t take long to prepare but the results are astonishingly great.
Sautéing your Mushrooms
Next in the recipe, we will sauté the mushrooms in the pressure cooker. You can have the amount of olive oil you want. We will keep the quantity a little high just the way we like it. For richness, you can even add cream and butter if you like but just make sure it doesn’t turn too heavy.
Another alternative for sautéing your mushrooms is through simple oil cooking. This alternative method can be used if you wish to avoid your dish from burning because of the butter. When you use oil, it will extract out maximum moisture from your dish so it will make your risotto mushroom a lot crunchier. It also adds to the intensity of flavor.
Adding Garlic and Onions
When you are done with cooking mushrooms, you should now add diced garlic and onions to your dish. Make sure that they haven’t turned brown. End your mushrooms with soy sauce. It will just add more flavor to your mushrooms. However, it is not necessary to add soy sauce to the dish.
Once you are done with adding all the flavors, you can now add rice to your mushrooms and toast the dish for a while until it becomes translucent.
In this recipe, the rice density is going to be lesser than the conventional risottos. The reason being that due to pressure cooking, the evaporation has been reduced. It is a slight drawback of pressure cooking risottos. The broth flavor can be compromised upon because the mushroom flavor is quite overpowering.
When you have all the ingredients together, your will need to put your risotto back on slow stove for five minutes at low pressure rapid chill instantly by running the pressure cooker through water. You can also rapid chill through steam release if you like. Upon opening the lid, you will find it a little watery but once you stir it a few times, you will have the conventional risotto feel and look.
Add Garnishes
While the risotto was cooking for those five minutes, you can chop down a few herbs to garnish over the dish. You can even add parmesan cheese and whatever you like unless it’s not sweet of course. You mushroom-packed risotto is ready to be served.
Conclusion
Thanks to the pressure cookers, the mushroom-packed risotto will be cooked within few minutes. It will save you quite a bit of time and effort so it is an ideal dish to prepare after you reach home tired from work.
More reading: Find the best rice cookers in 2016 for your daily rice cooking.
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