Can I cook and chill risotto and then heat it in a microwave later?

[bran]

I really fancy risotto tonight (chicken, shallot, garlic and baby leaf kale), but I won't have time to make it just before we eat. Could I make it now and chill it and then heat it up in the microwave later, or would it go all mushy and horrible?

I re heated risotto, it was a bit mushy but OK

not as nice as freshly cooked tho

Mushy, I'd have thought. I know you can't freeze it. The rice goes funny.

I freeze risotto all the time and it's fine.

Risotto tends to go a bit stodgy if you leave it and reheat.

Can you do all the prep now and then just cook it - should only take half an hour.

my guess is you add the kale, chicken to the rice when it is almost cooked with the last ladle of water?. If so i would cook do up to this point in advance. works really well. Found this out when i undercooked some for us and reheated it with extra stock for ds and found it was really nice!

can reheat in microwave but works best in saucepan/frying pan

You have to be careful reheating rice - there is a particular bug that can live in rice. If you put some turmeric in when you reheat it, apparently that helps to kill bugs.

In Micrwowave Gourmet (by Barbara Kafka) she has reipe for risotto made in the microwave (which works brilliantly, as the micrwave brings out the strage in the rice - which is great for risottos but not good fro other rice). She usggests that if you want to make the risotto ahead, he keep back a small amount of the liquid and then add it when you want to heat and microwave again for a period. Sorry - don't know the eaxct quanitites/times, but would think that you if you kept back a 100ml and then micrwaved fro 5 minutes, that would probably work. leave to stand for a couple fo minutes after microwaving too - it'll contineu to abosorb the liquid.

I think the rice bacteria thing is ok if you don't open the lid once the rice has started cooling. Usually the problem occurs if the rice has been left exposed below boiling point.

I might follow witchandchips suggestion and cook it so it's slightly underdone and then add the final stock, chicken and veg.

I have a complicated afternoon later on, so I definitely won't have time to cook it. DS will probably be quite hungry by the time we get in as it will be past dinner time so a half hour wait would be disaster.

Thanks everyone.

Ooh - I never thought of putting pesto thorugh it! Must try it!

I had a plain risotto last night as we had nothing in the house: just onions, risotto and finished off with some parmesan. The Micorwave Gourmet recipe isn't any quivker, but does mean you don't have stand over the hob stirring and you still get a loveyl creamy result. Mmmmmm

Have you got the book "Cook with Jamie"

On pg 120 he tells you how they do it in restaurants, basically make it to a certain stage then spread it on a tray and cool it and store in a tupperwear for anything up to a few days

He makes it to the point where it is 75% ready in advance.

I won't go into all the details in case you already have a copy but am happy to do a longer post if you don't have it.

Never tried it myself mind!!