Secrets from the master risotto chef... or how to make rice taste good

I've been doing it so wrong, in fact, that I'm surprised that every time I meet an Italian person they don't recoil from my handshake, as if able to feel in some subliminal way that I have done terrible, terrible things to the grain of their land.

Rightly or wrongly (definitely wrongly) I have always viewed risotto as a 'meh' kind of dinner. It's not quite on a level with my dinner I call 'friends'- that's a portmanteau of fridge and ends, which involves combining the ghosts of dinners past into one awful tea because you've not been shopping. But risotto is also certainly not my Come Dine With Me meal - that involves a sexy bit of fish, some aged parmesan and fearfully delicious slow-roasted tomatoes.

The reasoning behind why risotto is never something to look forward in my house is completely my fault. My method always yields a meal one-dimensional and boring in both flavours and texture, the kind of dinner akin to Limmy's permo: in other words, a never ending experience of unhappiness. But I have been saved from a lifetime of risotto-induced misery, and all it took was a charming Italian chef and a new found respect for chicken stock.

Riso Gallo is the world's preeminent risotto brand (it makes other products, too, but risotto constitutes around 90% of its output). And not content with being a by-word for quality - supermarket own brands will be cheaper but don't sift out the broken grains in packs of risotto, resulting in a denigration of overall consistency - the company is also intent on showing that this particular form of rice can be our friend. Our tasty, tasty, expectation-transcending, potentially Come Dine With Me dinner-worthy friend.

And so, in a cookery masterclass, Mattia Camorani (head chef at the city's G&V hotel) is on hand to show us the ways of the grain at the Edinburgh New Town Cookery School. 

Camorani is using carnaroli rice (watch and don't confuse the chef with what he makes) instead of arborio to create his risotto masterpieces. This is because of the composition of carnaroli lends itself better to the dish as it contains more starch and so retains its shape better when cooking.

There are many misconceptions about risotto, he explains. Risotto is much more manageable than we often give it credit for, and with an unsurpassed character if it begins life correctly. Busting further myths, we learn that risotto does not need constant stirring. In actual fact stirring it all the time will damage the grains of rice and cause them to fracture. A risotto can be stirred as few as four times throughout the cooking process.

Like many things, the way risotto starts life is the most important aspect of ensuring the end flavours are top drawer. A good stock is vital. For example, add water to butternut, sage and nutmeg risotto and it becomes rice, water and ingredients, with no depth. Add a fine stock - specifically chicken stock, because lamb and beef are too rich - and it will become butternut squash, sage and nutmeg risotto to the power of 100, each component bigger and bolder than it was to begin with. Chicken stock, it seems, is to risotto what alcohol is to humans.

Another eye-opener is how a risotto is finished. In his vegetable-based dishes Camorani adds mantecatura at the very end. Mantecatura, for the uninitiated, is essentially the 'shoogling' of cold butter and parmasan until they melt into the rice. To a calorie counter, this would constitute a fairly terrifying amount of butter, mind you - the recipe states 75g but I have a sneaking suspicion our chef uses more in his demo - but it is absolutely a calorie burden worth bearing, because the risotto is so knock-out.

Camorani talks about 'palate fatigue,' and it's this idea that rings the truest with risotto. The most incredible-tasting risotto ever made can still be guilty of palate fatigue: that is, becoming tiresome when consumed thanks to every mouthful consisting of the same thing. To avoid this, Camorani varies the shapes that he chops the vegetables and is creative in the way he plates up: his seafood risotto has an artfully placed mussel here, a clam containing its treasure there, so as to throw a curve ball every now and then.

A good risotto is not just about rice, though there's little doubt that Riso Gallo's product is ideal for the task at hand. It is about committing to the meal completely, and not scrimping on what underpins the obvious. Start right, be patient, remember the rules and above all: respect the stock.

Come Dine With Me risotto, you're only 17 minutes away.

How to make the ultimate mushroom risotto (with a few of chef Mattia's secrets thrown in along the way)

Ingredients

300g carnaroli rice or vialone nano rice

50g white onion

30g butter

125ml white wine

2.5l chicken stock

250g selection of mixed mushrooms

Chopped flat parsley

1 garlic clove chopped

For the mantecatura

75g cold butter

40g grated parmesan

Method

1)      Clean and cut the mushrooms, cook with some butter, chopped garlic and chopped parsley and set aside. If wishing to add dried porcini mushrooms, do so at end of the cooking process.

2)      Bring the chicken stock to the boil.

3)      Chop the onion and cook in a separate pan with the butter. The onion should be sliced into pieces smaller than the grains of rice to avoid the two competing.

4)      Add the rice to the onion and toast a little, add the white wine and let it evaporate.

5)      Once the wine has evaporated, pour over enough boiling chicken stock to cover the rice. If cooking for more than four, ensure the pot used for cooking in is wider, rather than taller. This will ensure that the rice is cooked at the same speed.

6)      Cook gently for 17 minutes, adding a ladle of chicken stock as required.

7)      After 10 minutes, add the cooked mushroom.

8)      3 minutes to the end, stop adding the chicken stock.

9)      To finish the risotto, 'mantecatura' with a wooden spoon, vigorously beat in the cold butter and parmesan. Taste for seasoning.