risotto

[waldo]

doe's risotto have to be cooked to order or is there a way to hold it if you are serving lots of orders?

[Suzanne]

At a couple of the places where I worked, we cooked it most of the way, then spread it out on sheet pans to cool. It was finished in just a few minutes for service, adding more liquid to thin and finish.

The important thing is not to refrigerate it, if you can avoid it, because that hardens the rice grains.

Hope this helps.

[Bazza]

Once you have cooked it all the way it will not hold without spoiling. Most restaurants do what Suzanne said, or another method which I have not tried is to boil the rice for five minutes, drain and then cool it. This should reduce the cooking time to about ten minutes.

[ryanInayr]

At some really really high end restaurants, however, do cook it to order. but they also give you a nice bottle of wine and ask for 45 minutes to 1 hour for the cook time.

[phatch]

This topic comes up again and again.

Take a look at some of the past topics:

Risotto, how long can you hold?

Pre-Preparing Risotto Rice

precooking risotto

[GrlcbrkmyGinsu]

There's a really small but really nice Italian place on my street that serves some of the best risotto I've had, it's just too bad they only serve it on Wednesday. I guess it's due to the trouble it is.