The prospect of going back to Italy has also made me want to go crazy on cooking Italian food. You know – the fresh, simple, authentic flavors of Italy. The great thing about Italian food is that everybody loves it. It’s approachable but not simplistic. It’s easy to cook but so satisfying.

I’ve invited my parents to come over for dinner, and I know my Dad loves meat sauces. I have my shortcuts to making a great meat sauce (the one I always make as part of my very popular lasagna), but this time I decided to tackle a great classic: the Bolognese Sauce.

Bolognese sauce has sort of become the generic name for a meat and tomato sauce on this side of the ocean. Tasting it in Italy reveals a surprisingly different experience: my first encounter with an authentic Bolognese sauce was in Modena. E and I were wandering about this friendly university town, and were attracted by a cute caffè to grab a bite for lunch. The decor was all-white contemporary, music was loungy, comfortable couches littered the back of the restaurant and the place was filled with students hanging out or working on their computers. Turns out that the owner spoke French (he lived for many years in France), so he translated his very short daily menu (scribbled on a small piece of paper that waiters were carrying around) and, when he learned we’d arrived in the region just the day before, he proudly recommended his Spaghetti Bolognese, the sauce made daily with fresh ingredients – nothing frozen in there. I kind of think he was proud to be “our first” – and the experience was unforgettable. The taste was meaty but surprisingly delicate, aromatic, creamy and subtle. I’ve never tasted a pasta dish that married so well with plenty of freshly-grated parmigiano-reggiano.

The beautiful city of Modena in Emilia-Romagna, Italy.

My very first authentic spaghetti bolognese in a Modena caffè - love the idea of using a Chinese spoon for the grated cheese!

Of course, there is no single recipe of Bolognese Sauce, but the basic ingredients must be the same. It’s a serious thing too: in 1982, the Academia Italiana della Cucina officially registered the recipe with the Bologna Chamber of Commerce. The classic recipe must contain: onions, celery, carrots, pancetta, ground beef, tomatoes, milk and white wine.

Ingredient notes:

• Onion, celery, carrots: Now is the time to use your knife skills. Dice everything evenly in small ¼-inch dices. The size uniformity of these ingredients will allow them to cook evenly and will produce a more enjoyable texture. By the way, this combination of ingredients, cooked in olive oil and seasoned with salt and pepper, is called a soffritto and is the base of many Italian dishes.
• Tomatoes are not a main ingredient in the sauce – you add a bit of it for taste but it is a meat sauce, first and foremost.
• Meats: Use lean ground meat (for a special treat, ask your butcher to chop the meats coarsely – 1/3 inch thick) and best-quality pancetta.
• Milk: Yes, milk is the surprise ingredient responsible for producing a more orange than red sauce (it also makes the meat more tender).
• Broth: Although the registered 1982 recipe doesn’t include broth, most recipes I’ve encountered include some instead of water. It makes more sense to me taste-wise to choose beef over chicken broth.
• Seasoning: This recipe (perhaps surprisingly) doesn’t contain any aromatic herbs or spices. It is frowned upon to add bay leaves or red pepper flakes. The only flavoring in this recipe is sea salt and black pepper. It is highly recommended to use sea or kosher salt as it lends a more refined taste than regular table salt.
• Pasta: This is a hearty sauce that should be eaten on pasta that can support its weight: it is often served with the wide and flat tagliatelle (fresh or dry).
• Cheese: Please – please – use only freshly grated authentic parmigiano-reggiano. It makes all the difference in the world.
• Method: Finally, note that this sauce doesn’t like to be rushed. Some recipes with offer shortcuts but the only way to allow the flavors to develop fully and the sauce to become so rich is a very long simmering – and I mean, 4 hours long. The base of the recipe isn’t complicated or time-consuming to make and the rest is just passive time in the kitchen. You start a bit batch, stir in once in a while and enjoy for many meals to come.

Fresh pappardelle pasta

My version of a delicious and authentic bolognese ragù (bolognese sauce).

Pappardelle Alla Bolognese.

My recipe is a blend of two favorites: the first from Josée Di Stasio, an Italian-Canadian celebrity cook and TV host in Quebec, and the second one from the (awesome!) new book, The Geometry of Pasta. I liked that the first mixed ground veal and pork with beef, and I thought the addition of beef broth in the second one would produce a deeper taste.

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Ragù Bolognese
Authentic Bolognese Sauce

Makes about 8 servings

2 tablespoons olive oil
4 tablespoons butter

1 large yellow onion, finely and evenly diced
4 small (or 2 very large) carrots finely and evenly diced
4 stalks celery heart (or 2 large celery stalks) finely and evenly diced
4 garlic cloves, very finely diced
120 g diced pancetta (1/4 to ½-inch cubes)

Kosher or sea salt (I’m using kosher salt, which has less salting power than sea salt, in this recipe)
Freshly ground black pepper

1 kg ground meat (blend of veal, pork and beef – or just beef, if you prefer)

1 cup dry white wine (like a Chardonnay)
2 cups milk
1 28-oz can whole San Marzano tomatoes, diced (you will use both the liquid as well as the tomatoes)
1 cup beef stock

To serve
A few knobs of butter
Freshly grated parmigiano-reggiano
Fresh or dry tagliatelle, pappardelle, spaghetti, rigatoni or even farfalle, cooked in salted boiling water according to the manufacturer’s instructions

Place a large saucepan over medium heat and melt the butter in the oil. Add the onion, carrot, celery and garlic with a good pinch of salt (about ½ teaspoon) and sauté for 5 minutes, stirring often. Add the diced pancetta and cook for a further 10 minutes, until vegetables are softened and pancetta is golden.

Finely dice the onion, carrot and celery to make a basic soffritto - and to end up with a better sauce texture too.

Increase the heat to high and add the meat a third at a time, stirring and breaking lumps with a spoon between each addition. Adding the meat gradually allows the water to evaporate – which is key if you want to brown your meat and not boil it. After the last addition, when no pink can be spotted in the meat and no lumps remain, set a timer to 15 minutes. You want your meat to caramelize and even become crispy in spots. More water will evaporate and flavors will concentrate. You want golden bits of meat to stick to the bottom of your pan – this flavorful crust will then be deglazed with white wine. Watch over your pan as you don’t want your meat to burn. When you see some serious caramelization action happening, lower heat to medium to each the end of your 15-minute sautéing time (on my stove, that’s after about 8-9 minutes).

Left: sauteed vegetables and pancetta; Right: caramelized bottom of pan before deglazing with white wine.

Over medium heat, pour the white wine into the sauce pan. With a wooden spoon, scrape all the brown bits stuck to the bottom of your pan. Push the meat all around to make sure you scrape it all off. By the time you’re finished, the wine will be evaporated (2-3 minutes). Be careful not to let the meat stick again (lower the heat if necessary).

Add milk, diced tomatoes (with liquid), beef stock, 1 teaspoon salt and a good grinding of pepper. Bring to a boil and then lower to the lowest heat and let simmer very slowly, half-covered, for 4 hours. Stir once in a while. If your sauce starts sticking before the end of your cooking time, lower the heat (if possible) and/or add a bit of stock or water. In the end, the sauce should be thick, more oil- than water-based and thick like oatmeal. Adjust the seasoning one last time – don’t be afraid of adding more salt (tasting each time you add some), it is this recipe’s key seasoning.

Simmer the bolognese sauce very slowly, half-covered, for 4 hours on the lowest heat possible.

To serve: Reheat the sauce. Mix in a knob or two of butter and about two generous tablespoons of freshly grated parmigiano-reggiano per serving – these last additions will produce an incredibly creamy flavor. Drain your pasta very well and return to the pot. Spoon some sauce, just enough to coat the pasta. Serve in bowls with a few leaves of basil sprinkled on top and more freshly grated parmigiano-reggiano, to taste.

But do I feel true attraction for molecular gastronomy? Not really. In truth, I don’t know that much about molecular gastronomy (which I will abbreviate to MG from now on), but I know that I like true, simple flavors. My favorite cuisine is Italian, for the love of fresh and authentic ingredients made into modest but luscious and oh-so-satisfying dishes. But I’m also very curious, and a true gourmande at heart, so I love to witness (and taste) the evolution of the culinary world. Some MG techniques have become quite common in the restaurant world, such as foams, spheres (or caviar) and even the use of liquid nitrogen. But will they ever make it to the home kitchen?

A peek inside The Modernist Cuisine kitchen lab. This is just a small portion of it.

That may be the bet that the authors of the new MG “encyclopedia”, The Modernist Cuisine: The Art and Science of Cooking, are putting their money on. I’m calling it an encyclopedia just for the sheer size of the work: 6 volumes, 2,400 pages, 3,500 photos and illustrations, 43 lbs total weight! It took 4 years, 36 writers and editors and certainly a stellar budget to get to this. Who could afford (and have the courage) to undertake such an ambitious project?

Mr. Nathan Myhrvold, the first Microsoft CTO, that’s who. Mr. Myhrvold has had a lifelong love affair with food: he’s had a culinary training, he worked in restaurants, he acted as Chief Gastronomic Officer for Zagat Survey and even won the World Championship of Barbecue in 1991. He’s not new to the game, and his passion (and monetary means) allowed him to recruit chefs Chris Young and Maxime Bilet (formerly from The Fat Duck) to build their very own laboratory kitchen and conduct experiments that would lead to The Modernist Cuisine.

Chef Maxime Bilet and Author Nathan Myhrvold.

Attached to the International Food Blogging Conference in Seattle were a handful of optional activities offered on a first come, first served basis. As soon as The Modernist Cuisine lab visit invitation was posted, I emailed the organizer with little hope of making it since very few visitors would be allowed in. Just a week before, they had released a 20-page PDF excerpt that had the blogging world buzzing over the astonishing photography and extravagant setup built for the book.

Nevertheless, I got in and was very excited to have an exclusive insight into what will certainly become a very influential work in the MG world. Not knowing what to expect, I drove to an industrial area of Bellevue and walked around a nondescript beige building to be welcomed into a real science lab. The Modernist Kitchen is located on Mr. Myhrvold’s Intellectual Ventures premises, a firm dedicated to creating and investing in inventions. Waiting to get in, and sipping a glass of white wine, I could see medical equipment, high-precision microscopes, detailed human organ diagrams. Nothing to make me hungry, except for the printed menu detailing the food they would serve us: 5 snacks and 5 small bites.

Watermelon chips (yes, watermelon can be fried, who knew!) and foie gras cherries (not really cherries, they're made of foie gras).

Lentil Salad with Foie Gras, Bing Cherries, Chamomile (the bing cherries are diced and incorporated into the salad).

Turns out there were about 25 of us waiting to be allowed inside. We followed a PR person to the kitchen, which looked like a cross between a warehouse and a science lab – nothing like a commercial kitchen at all. We were introduced to Mr. Myrhvold and his crew, and the food started to be passed around.

After the short presentation, we were allowed to walk around freely, to peek into the pantry, to talk to the chefs and the crew, to take pictures and to observe each bite being made with the high-tech equipment (most of which I had never seen before, such as centrifuge machines, ultrasonic cookers, super blenders and sous-vide ovens). Mr. Myrhvold and Chef Chris Young (Chef Maxime Bilet was busy managing the kitchen staff) were surprisingly approachable and were excited to unveil their experiments to the world. It was the first “press” event since the start of the project, and they had visibly practiced their answers to the tougher questions that they knew they were going to be asked:

Q: $625 (list price) for a cookbook – isn’t this a bit steep?
A: You’ll get it for less if you pre-order it on Amazon! (It’s still $500…) Of course, it’s not cheap, but for the research, photography and culinary advance, this book promises to deliver.

Q: Couldn’t you sell each volume separately?
A: No, we felt it was meant to be sold as a complete work. Moreover, we are constantly referring to other volumes to make the content more concise. It would have been impossible to repeat all referenced material to make each volume independent on its own.

Q: Did you approach publishers before deciding to self-publish?
A: Yes, and they weren’t interested. But by the time we got the negative answers from the publishers, we had already build the lab, hired freelancers, bought a lot of the equipment – a lot of money was already spent, so self-publishing was a logical answer.

Q: How many do you have to sell to be profitable?
A: We hope to sell at least 5,000 copies.

Q: Who is your target audience?
A: Any cook, professional or amateur, who is curious about the future of cooking. (And who has the means to spend $500 on a 6-volume book, if I might add.)

Q: Can this be used as educational material for cooking school students?
A: Not out-of-the-box. It’s a very informative work, but a curriculum would have to be built around it.

Q: Do you have plans to release The Modernist Cuisine as a digital book?
A: Not at this time. We truly believe that this is a work that is meant to be published on paper (click to see how the book will be printed). If the sales of the book go as expected, we will consider a digital version, but not in the near future.

When visitors were busy tasting the dishes, I had the chance to go to Myhrvold and Young and ask them all of my questions (see above) directly. I also tried to grill them about the great Ferran Adrià – does he know about what you’re doing? What does he think about it? Were you confronted by MG experts as to why you (with all due respect) are better positioned to write the biggest molecular gastronomy work ever printed; something that could have been expected from Mr. Adrià?

Even these questions didn’t unsettle Myhrvold or Young, and they gave me equivalent answers. The great MG chefs right now (be it David Chang, Wylie Dufresne or Ferran Adrià) are in their restaurant kitchens and simply can’t afford the time or the money to produce this kind of written work (chefs Young and Bilet have been working full time on the book, not in a restaurant kitchen, for the past three years). Myhrvold and his staff have consulted with all these chefs, and many of their recipes will be adapted in The Modernist Cuisine. They have all provided quotes praising the book, and Myhrvold even told me he exchanges “daily emails” with Adrià and that he had been very generous with his time by providing advice and reviewing chapters of the book.

So! It seems that all is well in the MG world: no competition; all working towards the same goal of culinary innovation. The book’s elevator pitch even boldly claims to aim at reinventing cooking.

Horse Mackerel Sashimi, Ginger, Plum.

The Modernist Cuisine kitchen staff preparing plates of Wagyu Beef Cheek Pastrami, Black Bread, Beef Marrow Mousseline.

Wagyu Beef Cheek Pastrami, Black Bread, Beef Marrow Mousseline.

During the visit, I could see some ruffled feathers, especially amongst my female peers. Molecular gastronomy is (right now) mostly men’s territory. Women tend to approach cooking with emotion, feelings; they cook with their hearts. Visiting a kitchen turned into a surgical environment, hearing dishes described as experiments, seeing a pantry filled with jars labeled with chemical names nobody’s ever heard of before – all of this can ruin your appetite if you are attached to the emotional side of food.

What do I think about this undertaking? I think that most things in this world advance with research and development. If someone is passionate enough to dedicate so many resources to culinary advancement, I say, go for it. Everybody’s going to win. It doesn’t mean that I’m going to have a centrifuge-this or an ultrasonic-that in my kitchen any time soon, but these innovations may boil down to simpler tools and techniques that will make cooking easier and food taste better. I would love to get my hands on The Modernist Cuisine; to learn from it and be inspired by this important work and its incredible photography. To be a witness of this true research thesis and hopefully get a glimpse of the future.

The dish that may itself make it worth buying the book (my favorite): Pressure-Cooked Grits, Strawberry Marinara, Corn Husk Consommé.

For the sweet tooth: Frozen Pistachio "Cream" with Cherries, Tomatoes, Lemongrass, Rum Cannelé; Olive Oil Gummy Worms.

The Authors: Chris Young, Nathan Myhrvold, Maxime Bilet.

I feel for the IFBC organizers who had to take up the challenge to make 250 food enthusiasts belly-happy for 3 days. For me, they really did it. At every meal, we were lucky enough to benefit from the talent of creative chefs and we never served the same thing twice. Here’s how it went down:

Friday night: Opening of the conference at Hotel Monaco. Cocktail party hosted by the main sponsors with wine tastings, cocktails, and small bites.

Saturday:

• Breakfast: Fresh breads and French pâtisseries; one-bite muffins and cakes; variety of berries.
• Lunch: Small plates menu prepared by 5 different chefs with wine pairings.
• Cocktail-hour: Tapas with Sherry pairings.
• Dinner: Tasting menu crafted by 6 different chefs; desserts; wines.

Sunday:

• Breakfast: An incredible array of (enormous) doughnuts, muffins, berries.
• Lunch: Food truck gathering; beer.

Are you hungry yet? If not, wait ’till you see the pictures. Unfortunately, my pictures are not the best as I tried to travel light and only brought my point-and-shoot camera, but I think it’s still worth showing.

By the way, I will be writing about the food that I enjoyed best, just like I would talk about a fantastic new restaurant I just discovered. In no way do I feel obligated to mention anybody because they were sponsors; I just think that people who do wonderful things should be talked about.

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Feeding from the Food Trucks

Gourmet food trucks all are the rage in large US cities: forget about your Mom & Pop greasy fast food joint. Many of them are now managed by chefs who have been trained in such serious cooking schools as the Culinary Institute of America, they are often mentioned in serious publications such as the New York or LA Times, and they have hoards of food enthusiast followers on Twitter. Guides are even published to find the very best food trucks.

I was very curious to find out if all the rage was worth it because this trend hasn’t yet reached Quebec. We do still have the traditional burger & fries trucks driving around and while they serving delicious and fresh fast food, they’re not the gourmet kind.

Turns out we had a very nice selection to choose from: Mexican, Thai and Lebanese trucks as well as pizza, burgers, crêpes and ice cream were all fighting for our attention. I tried them all – my belly still thanks me. I couldn’t help myself, it was that good.

Waiting in line for the best food truck food around:

“What would you like to have today?” – Lovin’ the small windows from which they take your order. El Camión Food Truck.

Pollo Verde Tamale and Pescado Taco from El Camión Food Truck:

Wagyu Beef Burger with Arugula, Cambonzola Brie Cheese and Onion Chutney from Skillet Street Food:

Wood-Fired Pizzas from Rolling Fire – of which I had two slices and had to restrain myself from getting a third:

Pike Brewing Co. & Anita’s Crepes:

The very cute Molly Moon’s Homemade Ice Cream Truck:

A delicious (and lactose-free) mango and basil sorbet from Molly Moon’s Ice Cream:

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Saturday Night’s Tasting Menu

This dinner was truly a delicious surprise. After the last conference on Saturday, they asked us to go outside to the “food area” and enjoy a Spanish happy hour so that they would be able to “turn the room around”. They literally did just that, turning the tables to place them perpendicular to the stage where Saveur Magazine’s Editor-in-Chief, James Oseland, would give his speech. White tablecloths, flowers and candles gave the room a more intimate feel.

While we listened to Oseland’s passionate and inspiring words, the chefs were outside, each at their small tables under white tents, feverishly preparing hundreds of servings, Top Chef style. Right before service, they all took a minute of their time to come on stage to present their dishes – right then and there we knew we were in for a treat. Attendees probably had a hard time restraining themselves to run to the tables to get their servings. Each chef had chosen a beautifully shaped plate to match their food and I had a hard time balancing mine to bring them back inside to eat (I have a newfound respect for servers).

All the food was amazing: tasty, colorful and rather artfully presented, considering the chefs were mostly alone with only one helper to plate all the servings. Interestingly, the menu worked well as a whole, the flavors were harmonious with each other and no plate overshadowed another. This could have very well been a hundred-dollar tasting menu in a great restaurant.

Chilled Sockeye Salmon with Mascarpone, Cherry Tomatoes, Cucumbers and Chile Salsa (Chefs Brian McCracken and Dana Tough):

Beef Carpaccio with Wild Watercress, Pickled Cauliflower and Pecorino Toscano (Chef Ethan Stowell):

Salad of Locally Grown Chickpeas (Chef Holly Smith):

Creamy Mascarpone Polenta with Spinach and Southern Grits with a Vegetable Ratatouille (combo plate by Chefs Jeff Mall and Josh Silvers):

An amazingly tender Wagyu Beef Cheek (melt-in-your-mouth isn’t even accurate enough to describe the texture of this meat) with Stuffed Squash Blossoms and Fresh Corn (by Chef Tamara Murphy):

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Other Favorites

#1 for most challenging food:
Marinated Octopus with Chickpeas, Preserved Lemon and Chorizo Vinaigrette (Chef Shannon Galusha). I never had octopus before, but the salad was so tasty and smoky that I loved it.

For the Sweet Tooth:
Luscious chocolates from Theo Chocolates and Cupcakes from Cupcakes Royale:

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Still hungry?
Check out these posts from other International Food Blogging Conference attendees:

• On Food and Friendships: The International Food Blogging Conference 2010
• Swag from the IFBC – The Merry Gourmet
• IFBC: Sex, but No Drugs or Rock n Roll – Salty Seattle
• IFBC 2010: What We Ate – Savour Fare
• 5 Sound Bites From the Food Bloggers’ Conference – deVine Table

Fast-forward to August: as the start of the conference grew closer, I began feeling a bit stressed. I’m naturally reserved and timid when it comes to meeting new people, especially when I’m by myself. Would I be stuck on my own all weekend? Would I be able to get to know new people and form friendships? My only comfort resided in my deep belief that food always brings people together, no matter what.

Boy, was I right! Even before the conference started, I got to know other attendees through Twitter. On Thursday, I had registered for an optional activity (the Modernist Cuisine visit) and had been very kindly invited to a party thrown by a fellow Seattle blogger. The night allowed me to “break the ice” and I had a taste of how open and friendly this food community is.

On Friday, the first night of the conference, everybody was looking for one another, the majority of people having never met face-to-face. It was very easy to blend in and feel relaxed and confident. I was excited!

I’ve been to more than a dozen conferences, tradeshows, and exhibitions in the past, all in the design business, and never before have I met such a bunch of people so eager to get to know each other, mingle, exchange business cards, and chat as old friends. By now, I’ve met dozens of interesting and very unique individuals. I’ve not been alone in a corner; far from it.

The conference itself is very interesting. Speakers are knowledgeable, food is very abundant and very delicious, wine is too, and giveaways are almost shamefully generous. This is by far the one conference I’ve attended where I feel I get the best return on investment, be it on the informative or personal levels. Sharing my passion with others who love food as deeply as I do, learning about other’s experiences, and eating together instantly made me feel warm and comfortable.

If this account of the event seems overly optimistic, it’s because the experience has been just great for me up to now (and I’m a fundamentally positive person). There’s still one whole conference day left with speakers I’m excited to hear. I’ll reflect on some more aspects of the conference in future posts.

Yet a clear sign that I’m not (yet) blasé is that I gasp every time I see the massive and impressive Mt. Rainier towering over the region. At a height of 4,392 meters, this guardian can be seen from the city only on bright and clear days, which from what I hear is only a couple dozen days per year. The best places to view it are from the Space Needle, from the airport or, ironically, from Highway 520 (which can be dangerous if you’re peeking at it while driving, like I’ve been doing all week).

As parents living far away from relatives, my brother and his wife don’t take too much time off on their own. I’ve enjoyed my brother’s master skills on the barbecue but on Tuesday, it was my sister-in-law’s birthday and I decided to give her a break. Cooking in someone else’s kitchen is always a challenge, but she loves to cook and is very well equipped (Sharp knives! Heavy-bottom pans! Gas stove! Sea salt!). Really, the only challenge was to decide what I would cook.

One of my fail-proof and go-to recipes is risotto and I love to mix things up every time I cook it by changing the flavorings. Being on the West Coast, I couldn’t help but being seduced by Alaskan King Crab and I decided I would marry it to longtime friend fresh corn (which also happens to be in season).

With my faithful point & shoot cam (my attempt to travel light!), I snapped pictures as I stirred, thinking it could be useful for many to visualize the key steps to ultimate creaminess. It’s very hard to completely fail risotto but getting it really creamy without the addition of butter or cream demands to carefully follow steps that can’t be fast-forwarded. This crab and corn flavor combination turned out perfect and will probably become a staple.

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West Coast Crab & Fresh Corn Risotto

Makes 4 to 5 main-course servings

Olive oil
A knob of butter (about 1 tablespoon)
1 medium yellow onion, finely chopped
2 sticks celery, finely chopped
5 sprigs lemon thyme, leaves picked and finely chopped

10 oz risotto rice (see recipe for details)
1 cup dry white wine (such as Chardonnay)

4 cups chicken stock
1 cup fresh corn kernels (from two medium ears of corn)
1 cup grated parmigiano reggiano
250 g (about 1 cup) cooked King Crab meat (I like to use a mixture of lump and claw meat)

Sea salt and freshly ground black pepper, to taste

The use of high-quality ingredients is the first step to the best risotto. Use only Italian risotto rice, preferably the Arborio or Carnaroli varieties. This short-grain rice contains a lot of starch, which makes the risotto creamy – not cream, nor butter.

The basic recipe is simple:

• Precook your protein and keep it warm
• Half-cook or warm your vegetables (keep warm)
• Cook your risotto base
• At mid-point, stir in your vegetables
• When the rice is al dente, incorporate your protein
• Stir in the cheese and serve

Sometimes I prepare my vegetables and protein as I cook the risotto base, but most often, I like to have everything ready by the stove. Then all I have to do is watch over my risotto, stir it and mix the ingredients in.

Put the chicken stock in a pot, bring it to a boil and turn the heat to very low, just to keep it hot. Put a lid on.

Place a large, shallow, heavy-bottomed pan on a low heat. Add the butter and olive oil to the hot pan and sweat the onion, celery, and thyme together. Keep the heat low as you don’t want your vegetables to brown. Cook for about 5 minutes, stirring occasionally, until soft and translucent:

Add the rice to your pan and stir it with the onion mixture. Stir and sauté the rice for a minute until it looks translucent (the inner grain will remain opaque):

Add the wine and stir constantly until it’s all absorbed by the rice. Your rice should now start to look creamy like this:

Add a first ladle of hot broth to the pan, always keeping your heat to low (if you find the liquid isn’t bubbling when you pour it in the pan, bring your heat to medium-low). Stir once in a while. When you see that most of the liquid has been absorbed by the rice, add another ladle of broth, and so on until you’ve used about half of your broth.

At this point, any kind of vegetable can be incorporated to the rice. Some will need to be partially cooked before you add then, other, softer kinds, can simply be stirred in. The remaining broth will cook your vegetables as you keep on adding it.

Add the corn kernels and stir well.

Continue adding the broth, one ladle at a time, always stirring and waiting for it to be absorbed before adding more. When you see that you just have one or two ladles left, start tasting your rice. The risotto rice is ready when it’s al dente: like pasta, it should be soft and chewy and still retain some texture. If it’s still a bit crunchy, add more broth a little at a time, tasting often to make sure it doesn’t overcook and become mushy.

Add your protein: stir the crab in delicately to keep the lumps intact.

Once the rice is done, take the pan off the heat and stir in your parmigiano-reggiano cheese. Season with salt and pepper. Some also stir in a knob of butter at this point but I prefer omitting it. Your risotto is now oozy and creamy and ready to be enjoyed.

Spoon the risotto into warm bowls. As a finishing touch, sprinkle some lemon thyme leaves, more parmigiano-reggiano cheese and drizzle a few drops of your best olive oil. Enjoy with a nice glass of your favorite Italian wine.