Por qué el chef J. Kenji López-Alt sirve el risotto en un plato caliente
López-Alt defiende servir el risotto en un plato caliente, porque uno frío lo vuelve pastoso antes de probarlo.
Risotto has a very narrow margin for perfection: it can be creamy and glossy one moment, and dull and mushy the next. To avoid this, chef, food writer, and cookbook author J. Kenji López-Alt suggests a simple solution: warm the dish in which it is served.
“It’s essential to serve it on a hot plate, because cold risotto is heavy,” López-Alt explained on Instagram, alongside a video of a “perfect” risotto alla Milanese, that creamy saffron rice that often accompanies ossobuco in Milan (via La Cucina Italiana). “Make sure your guests are ready,” she added as she stirred the risotto, glistening and intensely colored, steam rising from the pan. “Risotto doesn’t wait for anyone.”
In the description of her post, López-Alt commented that she used Daniel Gritzer's risotto alla Milanese recipe, published in Serious Eats, and described the result as "golden, al dente and with just the right creaminess to flow like lava."
Gritzer's recipe differs from traditional ones, like the one on the Food Network, in two ways. First, he rinses the rice in the chicken broth that's later used to cook the risotto. He explains that this preserves the surface starches that are usually lost during toasting, and the resulting liquid thickens the dish without the need for as much stirring. Second, he adds whipped cream to the finished risotto, an unusual ingredient that, according to him, provides exceptional lightness and creaminess.
The reason for serving it in a hot dish is that a cold one would lower the temperature of the risotto and make it mushy or too thick, instead of ethereal and silky, before it even gets a chance to be tasted.
