What’s your favorite comfort food? Mac ‘n’ cheese? Grilled cheese sandwiches? Tomato soup and rice? Well, move all of those off to the side and meet your new comfort food: Risotto al Pomodoro. If you’ve had risotto, that creamy, cheesy, infinitely variable Italian dish, you already know that it’s a 10 on the patent-pending comfort-o-meter. This tomato-based risotto turns the comfort dial up another notch.
We decided to make this very traditional dish after we’d made a batch of Pesto Trapanese. If you’ve made it, you’ll know that you’re left with about 2 cups of tomato sauce once you pull out the tomato flesh from a large can of San Marzano tomatoes. Being scratchers, we aren’t letting that leftover sauce go to waste. Not when you can make pizza sauce, soup, ketchup, or, best yet, Risotto al Poodoro, giving you two meals from a single can of tomatoes.
As with all risotto recipes, be prepared, as it does take a while to make what’s the best comfort food on the planet. Expect about an hour of stirring at the stove. But, with care and patience, you’ll be rewarded, and, next thing you know, you’ll be making risotto nearly weekly. We do.
Risotto al Pomodoro (Tomato Risotto)
Ingredients
- 2 cups tomato sauce preferably San Marzano tomatoes
- 1 Tbs olive oil
- 2 Tbs unsalted butter
- 1 cup arborio rice
- 1/3 cup dry white wine we use Pinot Grigio
- kosher salt
- Freshly ground black pepper
- 1/3 cup grated Parmegiano-Reggiano
- 1/3 cup thinly sliced basil leaves
Instructions
- Place tomato sauce in a small saucepan over medium-low heat and bring to a simmer.
- Melt butter with olive oil in a large saucepan over medium heat. When melted, add rice and stir to coat. Cook rice, stirring for about a minute.
- Add white wine and cook, stirring, until evaporated.
- Add tomato sauce, 1/2 cup at a time, stirring and cooking until mostly cooked down before adding more. Test rice after about 20 minutes for done-ness; it should be slightly chewy in the center.
- If more sauce is needed, add water to the tomato sauce and quickly bring to a simmer before adding to the rice.
- When rice is nearly done, taste, add salt and pepper as needed, then stir in cheese. Cover and let stand, off the heat, for about 5 minutes.
- Stir in basil and serve with additional cheese and small basil leaves for garnish.
Ingredient discussion:
What? No onion? No garlic? What is this? Well, if you want onion, put a bit in, perhaps a couple of tablespoons diced finer than the grains of rice. If you want garlic, go easy, perhaps one-half a clove, finely minced. To be honest, we would’ve put in both, but we didn’t have onion in the house. As for the garlic, we did use some oil from a batch of Garlic Confit we’d made earlier (it’s great stuff). Arborio rice really is needed (or another short-grain rice appropriate for risotto), it releases a lot of starch as it cooks, making a thick gravy. And, as always, use the real-deal when it comes to Parmegiano-Reggiano. It’s expensive, but it’s the best.
Procedure in detail:
Heat sauce. Now, fully expect that you’ll use all the sauce — the acid in the tomatoes cause the rice to take longer to cook — and still need more liquid. Don’t sweat it; when you start running low on sauce, add a cup of water, and quickly bring to a simmer before you need it. Right now, put the sauce in a small saucepan and bring to a simmer over medium-low heat.
Coat rice. This isn’t really cooking the rice, but just sort of coating it in oil and butter. Mmm, butter. Melt the butter in the oil in a large saucepan over medium heat. (If you’re using onions/garlic, cook them in the butter-oil mixture for a few minutes before adding the rice). Add the rice and stir to coat. You can cook the rice for a minute or so, but not much longer, as it seals the surface of the rice, preventing the release of starches.
Add wine. Stir in the wine — careful, it might sizzle and release a bunch of steam — and cook, stirring all the time, until it’s mostly evaporated. You should have rice in a thick slurry on the bottom of the pan; it’s okay if it’s starting to stick just a bit.
Add sauce. Stir in the sauce about 1/2 cup at a time, cooking and stirring until it’s mostly absorbed before adding the next batch. Continue doing this until most of the sauce is gone. You’ll probably need more liquid; if so, add about a cup of water to the sauce and quickly bring it back to a simmer, as you need to be adding hot liquid to your risotto. After about 20 minutes, test a grain of rice. It probably won’t be done. If it is, it should be tender on the outside and a bit chewy in the center. Continue adding sauce, cooking, stirring, and testing until the rice is done, most likely about 40 minutes.
Add cheese. Taste the risotto, add salt and pepper as needed, then stir in the cheese. Cover and let stand, off the heat, for about 5 minutes. This allows the cheese to melt into the rice mixture. Give the risotto a quick stir, taste, and adjust seasoning again. If the risotto doesn’t seem as if it has enough sauce, stir in a bit of water, sauce, cream, or butter.
Add basil and serve. Stir in the shredded basil, and serve immediately, with a bit more basil on top, along with an additional sprinkling of cheese.
We love every risotto that we make, but we’ve learned over the years and have had lots of practice. We know that it’s best served immediately, that it doesn’t rewarm well, and, that it takes a lot of stirring. All of that’s worth it, when it comes together like this. We’ve had tomato risotto in the past, albeit made into supplì, which we love, but not just as risotto. But, we’ll tell you, it’s great. It’s similar to an extra tasty, cheesy tomato rice soup, only not as soupy. Perfect for a meal on a chilly evening. Five stars.