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Top Tips on Cooking Italian Food
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Risotto Risotto is a dish made from rice, which is fried in butter (or oil) then has stock, water or wine added slowly along with other ingredients of your choice. In rice, there are 2 different types of starch; soft starch that is on the outside, which is released by the frying and thickens a risotto, then there is a hard starch in the centre that breaks down during cooking.
There are 3 types of rice that can be used to make a risotto; Arborio (the most common), Vialone Nano (developed in Japan during the 1950s) and Carnaroli, which has properties somewhere between the two.
Carnaloni rice is considered by many chefs to be the best to use for risotto because even though it cooks quickly, it retains an 'al dente' texture.
When frying the rice at the beginning of the process, do not use too much oil or butter. This is because once the rice is cooked and it has absorbed all of the liquid, the fat will remain apart and it will need to be drained off before serving.
When doing a risotto at home, a short-cut that can be used is to blanch the rice for 5 minutes before cooking. This makes the overall cooking much quicker.
When making a risotto, even though you do not want the rice to catch (stick to the bottom of the pan), it is important to NOT over-stir the rice, because it will become stodgy. You are looking for a creamy and velvety texture for a risotto. Move a wooden spoon around the edge of the food to ensure nothing is on the sides of the pan. Use gentle folding movements when stirring to ensure that you do not break the rice grains.
One way to test if a risotto is cooked enough, is to squeeze a grain of the rice between your fingers and if it still feels grainy or chalky, then it is not yet done.
Finishing a risotto with a little butter will add to the velvety flavours and texture.
If you store some rice in an air-tight container with a truffle, the rice will absorb the flavours and will produce a more distinct truffle risotto.
Pasta Never trust the cooking times on a packet of pasta, always use your own judgement. Normally, you can cook it for 1 minute less than the packet says, then taste it.
When cooking pasta, the water should always be boiling before adding salt and pasta. Do not add oil into the water, add extra-virgin olive oil immediately after the pasta is drained, then toss around to coat each piece. This will stop it sticking together.
If combining a sauce and pasta, always add the cooked pasta into a sauce, not the other way around. This way, the last part of the cooking is done in the sauce, so the pasta can absorb the flavours.
When cooking dried spaghetti, you can tell if it is cooked by tasting it. Look for a very slightly chalky taste and a texture that is not too chewy or hard. If you pinch a piece in half, you should see only a tiny white dot in the centre of the pasta. For a great spaghetti bolognaise recipe, click here.
General If making veal escallops 'milano' you do not need to coat them in flour before the egg and breadcrumbs if using fresh breadcrumbs instead of toasted breadcrumbs. This makes the dish lighter than otherwise.
An easy way to make gnocchi is to fill a piping bag with your mixture then pinch off lumps as you force it through the end.
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