Risotto con Shiitake Mushrooms

Mushrooms are always one of my favourite additions to make risotto. Porcini and finferli are particularly the perpetual winners, however recently we had a lot of dried shiitake on hand, while shiitake is not a traditional risotto mushrooms considering their marked unique fragrance I thought why not an experiment with risotto!? Surely enough, it came out extremely yummy!!

For 2 people
-1 cup of carnaroli rice (if you can't find it arborio is fine, but carnaroli is the ideal type for making risotto)
-One big onion, finely chopped
-6-10 dried shiitake mushrooms (depending on the size)
-60g (or more if needed) butter
-1 bayleaf
-100ml white wine*
-500-700ml of hot vegetable broth
-freshly ground parmigiano
-(optional) handful of chopped flat leave parsley

Soak the shiitake mushrooms in just enough water for one hour.
Take the mushrooms out, squeeze the liquid out (which to be saved) and roughly chop them.
In a large skillet sautè the onion with butter over middle heat. Add the rice and continue to cook, stirring thoroughly, until rice becomes semi-transparent.
Add the bayleaf, chopped mushrooms and wine, raise the heat level and bring to boil*.
When the wine is almost absorbed, add the liquid from soaking the mushrooms.

As the liquid gets absorbed as well, start adding the broth one ladleful at a time, adding another ladleful when the previous batch of broth is well absorbed (but the rice should still remain wet), stirring constantly.
Keep the broth hot by keeping it in a saucepan on a low heat, or microwaving from time to time.
Repeat the procesure until the rice are cooked "al dente" (firm, not crunchy not mushy)... it should take about somewhere between 20-25minutes more or less.
Chopped flat leaved parsley can be added towards the end of cooking the rice.
Serve hot with plenty of parmigiano to sprinkle upon.


*alternatively, you can use more water to soak the shiitake (+ you can load on extra mushrooms as well) to substitute the wine with the liquid conserved from soaking.