Enter Massimo Sola. It’s 3:30 in the afternoon on a Wednesday and I’m sopping wet from the Hotel Villa del Quar’s pool. Trying to make my way back to the room inconspicuously, clad in only a light blue embossed towel and swimsuit, I find myself face to face with a chef-whites-clad Sola. After a several minute discussion, I am promptly invited into his kitchen with a “I will show you risotto.” The next morning at 11:00, I brave my way through the labyrinth of the Villa del Quar back hallways and find myself in the most beautiful kitchen I have ever seen. Sous chefs cradle wooden spoons between their fingers and coax bubbling fish stocks along while the chef watches over with a careful eye. Upon my arrival to the inner sanctum, I promptly realize how little I know about risotto. One Sunday night in 7th grade with Everyday Italian, a wooden spoon and a giant hunk of parmesan cheese definitely doesn’t count as experience. But that story is for a different time.
And we begin. I soon learn that the giant pot of boiling liquid contains only water and that no we won’t be using any sort of stock. I discover that only one kind of rice will do. And so there, in a hotel kitchen 3 miles outside of the Romeo and Juliet capital of the world, clutching onto a prized gift of one precious tin of Acquerello rice, my risotto tutorial begins. We toast the rice until a buttery, nutty perfume is released. In goes a dollop of butter, a little splash of white wine and as always our good friends salt and pepper. Once all the liquid has evaporated we begin with the water. With only one or two ladle-fulls at a time, the little stainless-steel pot dancing back and forth, off and on the heat, sometimes here, sometimes there. A separate saucepan is fetched, and in goes a dollop of butter and a drizzle of olive oil, and one precious porcini mushroom. Now we’re talking mushroom risotto. Once they’re golden brown, in goes only the most beautiful of beef demi-glace. But only a dollop. We’re all 15 minutes older and one gurgling pot of rice wiser, and it’s time. The pot with the rice gets a splash of heavy cream and a good handful of parm. In dip our spoons and my hand gravitates towards the tub of sea salt. The chef nods in agreement, and I sprinkle some on in. Mmmm mmm mmm, perfect. Oh right…those mushrooms. We release the pans from the stove’s fiery grasp and bring them over to one of the many ridiculously stainless-steel surfaces of Chef Sola’s kitchen. And in go the mushrooms, in all their woody and meaty splendor. The risotto is spooned with extreme care onto a clean white plate. And with a final rapping of the heel of a hand to fan it out beautifully, our forks dig into some extravagance-less good eats. When the amazingly al dente grains hit my tongue, I understand that I have not witnessed a normal act of culinary behavior in this kitchen today. For upon my fork were not merely grains of rice or slivers of mushroom but something much greater. Some kind of magical kitchen entity had swooped down and made those crunchy nuggets of starch into something so different, so flavorful that it could not have been made with just water, salt, and a few other things that are always shoved in the back of all of our refrigerators. I imagine I would surely have laughed at such a claim if I had not personally witnessed the miracle. And if you just so happen to be that one soul who is, indeed, sitting by their computer slapping their knee with hilarity, wondering just how a person could possibly get any flavor out of a risotto made WITH WATER OF ALL THINGS…then I entreat you to go grab your nearest tub of rice and try it out for yourself. You won’t be sorry.
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in the Villa del Quar kitchen with Chef Massimo Sola
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Finished Product!
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