Venetian Risotto with Raisins and Parmesan

Name: Venetian Risotto with Raisins and Parmesan Recipe
Prep time: 15 min
Cook time: 30 min
Total time: 45 min
Cuisine: Italian cuisine
Ingredients: Rice (Arborio, Carnaroli) 1 cup (180 g); Parsley 5-6 sprigs; Garlic 1-2 cloves; Olive oil 3 tbsp; Raisins 100 g; Stock 0.8–1 l; Parmesan 50 g; Dry white wine optional; Salt 4–5 g; Dried herbs to taste

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45 mins

Venetian risotto is a common northern Italian dish made from starchy short-grain rice of the Arborio, Vialone Nano or Carnaroli varieties. There are as many ways to make risotto as there are people in Italy. Everyone cooks it their own way and is firmly convinced that their risotto recipe is the best and the most correct, especially for seafood risotto.

The Italians living in Venice, at the very north of the Adriatic Sea, are no exception. It is the city of Marco Polo, Antonio Vivaldi and Giacomo Casanova. It isn’t the most populous city, with barely more than a quarter of a million residents, but its beauty, its canals with gondolas, its lovely bridges and palaces have long made its name a byword.

All over the world you hear “the Venice of the North”, “the Venice of Egypt”, “Ukrainian Venice”, but never “Italian Venice”! Venice, the pearl of the Adriatic, stands on 118 islands of the lagoon, divided by 150 canals and channels, and is famous for its 400 bridges. Gondolas glide along the canals, steered by skilled gondoliers. The main squares are always full of tourists and pigeons. Tourists come and go. But the brazen, fat and pesky pigeons are eternal.

To visit Venice and not feed the pigeons would be barbaric. These picky birds flatly refuse to eat bread, crumbs and other food that our pigeons would gobble up instantly. They want corn! The vendors sell it right there, a euro a bag. I suspect there is a syndicate at work, and that the vendors and the pigeons are in cahoots.

By the way, pigeons don’t eat rice. The same can’t be said of Italians. Seafood risotto, vegetable risotto, porcini risotto. Venetian risotto is rice with raisins, herbs and Parmesan. It is probably the simplest risotto you can make from easy-to-find ingredients. I explain how to make risotto properly in my recipe for vegetable risotto. I also have several sweet versions, for example apple risotto.

Ingredients

2 servings

Rice (Arborio, Carnaroli) 1 cup (180 g)
Parsley 5-6 sprigs
Garlic 1-2 cloves
Olive oil 3 tbsp
Raisins 100 g
Stock 0.8–1 l
Parmesan 50 g
Dry white wine optional
Salt 4–5 g
Dried herbs to taste

Step-by-step recipe

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Preparation

They say you need experience to make risotto. By and large, that’s true. But it isn’t rocket science. It is easy to learn, and the technique is extremely simple. In cooking it is called “cooking in absorbed liquid”. The simple rule is that you need 2-3 times more liquid than rice. Since Arborio rice is very starchy, you may need a little more liquid.
You can soak the raisins briefly beforehand. Then the rice with raisins will look like a good porridge with big plump berries.
Pick all the leaves off the parsley sprigs and chop them very finely with a knife. Throw away the stems, which are coarse and not needed. Peel the garlic and crush it with the flat of the knife.

Cooking

You need a skillet, saucepan or pot with a lid. Heat the olive oil in it and quickly fry the crushed garlic cloves in the oil. The garlic’s job is to make the oil fragrant. Then discard the garlic and cook the rice with raisins in the oil.
Add the Arborio rice (by the way, you can use other Italian rice varieties too: Carnaroli, Vialone Nano, Baldo) to the pan and fry it in the flavored oil for a few minutes, stirring constantly. The rice will start to turn pearly and translucent around the edges. Frying the rice is a required and important step. You can fry it longer, as long as the rice doesn’t start to burn.
Season with a little salt to taste and add dried Mediterranean herbs. Strictly speaking, though, that isn’t necessary at all. It’s up to you. Add the finely chopped parsley leaves and start adding liquid to cook the rice.
If you like, at the very start of cooking add 50 ml of dry white wine and wait until the rice absorbs it. The wine is the first portion of liquid. Arborio rice absorbs a lot of liquid, and very actively. The liquid is vegetable or chicken stock. In the simplest case, just hot water from the kettle. If you decide to add stock, take care of making it in advance. Boil a chicken or chopped vegetables (carrots, celery and parsnip roots, and so on) in 4-5 cups of water (0.8–1 l). A pot of gently simmering stock should stand next to the saucepan where the rice with raisins, the Venetian risotto, is cooking. Add the stock to the rice in small portions with a ladle. Add the next portion after the previous one is absorbed. The rice with raisins cooks over very low heat. Don’t let it boil vigorously.
After about 5 mins, add the raisins to the risotto.
The total cooking time for the rice is about 20 mins.
Keep adding liquid until the rice is completely done: the grains should stand out clearly in the risotto, with just a barely perceptible firm core inside. This degree of doneness is called al dente. The rice with raisins takes on a creamy consistency and is slightly runny. The Italians say it should be like a wave.
The risotto is a bit like a good, not too runny, rice porridge with whole grains of rice.