INGREDIENTS
– Onion (1)
– Olive Oil
– Butter
– 2 Chicken Stock Cubes
– Saffron
– 350g of arborio rice
– White wine
– Grana Padano Cheese
– Salt and Pepper
DIRECTIONS
Fry off 1 diced onion in a little olive oil and 1 tablespoon of butter until soft and transparent. Meanwhile bring 1 litre of water to boil and dissolve 2 chicken stock cubes. Add one packet or as many strands of saffron as you can afford to the pot – I like mine rich and golden in colour so I tend to add a lot. Add roughly 350g of arborio rice to your pan and coat in the butter and olive oil, cooking on medium heat until you see that each grain of rice has a little transparent ring around the outside. Add a good splash of dry white wine and cook, stirring, until it has absorbed. Then ladle a small amount of the saffron stock over the rice so that it is just covered and stir over a medium heat until all the liquid is absorbed. Repeat this process until the rice has become creamy and soft. If you run out of stock and the rice is still quite hard on the tooth, you can always just ladle hot water until the rice is cooked.
Once the risotto is off the heat, stir through a generous amount of grated Grana Padano cheese and season with salt and pepper. Depending on how buttery you like your risotto, you can add more butter during the cooking of the rice, however, arborio rice is by nature quite creamy so you may not find it necessary.