Rice

Arroz Con Frijoles
             Black Bean Soup Served with Rice - Mauricio Contreras
             Fred Kiesche Makes Mauricio's Black Bean Soup
             Mauricio Replies
Congee - Jesse Strader
Rice and Yankees - John Donohue
Southern Rice - Tommy Armstrong
The Rice - Roberta Lovatelli
Hot Pepper Rice - Rowen
Leftover Rice - Lois
Cooking Rice - DJE
Fried Rice
             Gary Sims Inquires
             Susan Wenger
             David Scheidt
             Robin Welch
             Jan Garvin
             Astrid Bear
             John Gosden
             Linnea
             Alice Gomez
Risotto
             Anna Ravano
             Ruth Abrams
             Bruce Trinque
             Kerry Webb

Arroz Con Frijoles
Black Bean Soup Served with Rice - Mauricio Contreras
What I cook is a black bean soup served separately with white rice.
My recipe, adapted from Nitza Villapol, a well-known TV cook in Cuba before and after the Revolution consists of:
1 lb dried black beans
1.5 litres water
1 large onion, minced
5 to 6 garlic cloves, chopped
1 green pepper: stripped, seeds removed, white veins removed, chopped.
3/4 cup vegetable oil
4 tsp salt
1/4 tsp oregano
1/8 tsp ground pepper
1 bay leaf
1 tbsp sugar
1 tbsp vinegar
1 tbsp dry sherry
2 tbsp olive oil
Before doing anything, I pour the beans in a bowl and check for pebbles, cement bits, scattered legumes, and unattractive beans. One pebble or cement bit can be disastrous on your teeth. I do this everywhere: the US or Argentina.
I rinse the beans once in tap water to get rid of all the dust. Then I soak in a 1.5 litres of water in a Pyrex bowl for a minimum of 4 hours. I normally leave them soaking overnight, but more hours do not really make a difference. The quality of the water affects the rinsing. In Somerville, MA I usually ended getting a gallon of Cambridge, MA water: the hardness was different (different reservoirs). In Buenos Aires I use either mineral water or tap water.
I simmer the beans with the soaking water in a copper pot for several hours, depending on the hardness of the water. Two hours should be enough. I do not salt the water until I'm satisfied with the tenderness of the beans.
One hour before the expected tenderness time, I prepare the sofrito in a saute pan: onions, green pepper, and garlic, in the vegetable oil. I've used corn or olive oil. When the sofrito is soft and tender I stop. When the beans are tender I take out one full cup of beans and water and put in a blender for 10-20 seconds. I get a thick bean broth. I pour the broth in the sofrito, mix it well, and let it simmer for a while.
After this is done, I pour the contents of the saute pan in the pot with the beans and water and mix it well. Then I add seasonings: salt, pepper, oregano, bay leaf, and sugar. I leave this simmering for an hour and add the tablespoons of vinegar and sherry. Every once in a while I mix the soup well,with a wooden spoon: the bean broth precipitates on the bottom of the pot. After half an hour's additional simmering, I can serve. At the end I add a couple of tablespoons of oil.
As you've noticed, this is a vegetarian dish, although not deliberately (I'm no vegetarian). Black bean soups usually are seasoned with slices of Spanish sausage (chorizo colorado), slabs of bacon, cuts of pork. Some people--myself included--find these ingredients from experience indigestible. They add beautiful flavor, but also add to the beans' reputation as a heavy dish (added to the flatulent properties of the bean by themselves).
The resulting product is a silken and slightly chunky soup. The blended beans add a creamy texture to the soup and the sugar, vinegar, and dry sherry add interesting fragrances. I came to realize that the oregano is the defining spice to the black bean taste I have grown up with, and also, as usual in a very traditional family dish, that some ingredients can be added or taken out, or even reduced without changing drastically its flavor.
If you cook beans and rice simultaneously in the same pot, you get Moros con Cristianos. The rice is added to the sofrito (in Moros con Cristianos generally bacon and chorizo slices are added), then the presoaked and cooked beans. In my family, Moros con Cristianos is what you get when you mix leftover bean with a fresh batch of white rice. In my experience, frijoles are the equivalent of the miracle of the loaves and fish in the Gospel: you can spend a week eating leftovers from a pound of dried black beans. You pour some water to thin out the broth and heat.

Fred Kiesche Makes Mauricio's Black Bean Soup
I tried making the recipe today. I followed it as written, with one exception - I ended up using a lot more water throughout the cooking process (started with the indicated 1.5 liters, probably added about 5 more liters, and it still was more "stew-like" than "soup-like"); a lot was absorbed in the cooking process and a lot went bye-bye as steam.
Two thumbs up from my wife, my daughter did not try it (she runs hot and cold on food...rejected chili one week, but ate it the next week as we said it was "bean stew"...go figure!).
I liked it both plain, but with hot sauce or Worcestershire sauce. I could see doing a lot of variants on this.
Served with rice, served with a side salad, and we also made (turkey) kielbasi on the grill (so the young lady would have something with her rice and salad).

Mauricio Replies
I forgot to add that. You soak with the 1.5 litres. But at some point you end up adding boiling water, to compensate for steam loss and the long cooking times. Not much though: it's better to add some than to have too much.

Congee - Jesse Strader
Congee! Mmmm mmm. I started slurping congee for breakfast while I lived in New York City. I've always had trouble finding it in any place that didn't have a large population of Chinese descent. I've found it here in Minneapolis, but never on a breakfast menu, though the owner of a Chinese restaurant and bakery has commiserated with me, agreeing that the proper time to eat soupy rice is at breakfast -- if only she could get enough customers to think that way.
I make congee with shredded ginger root, rice, dilute chicken broth in my slow cooker. Big batch. It freezes nicely in single servings and I dish it out to myself with whatever additions that I have handy (my favorite is roast duck, scallion, cilantro and peanuts).
If you're in an area with a large Hispanic (not Mexican) population, look on menus for something called "asapao" or "asapado". It's basically congee with annato in it for coloring and usually some green peas. In the fondas of Manhattan, order the Shrimp Asapado with a side of tostones. Slurp the soup and dip the tostones in the broth. Oh, to die for! (I think I've talked myself into a weekend culinary project now.)

Rice and Yankees - John Donohue
Rice for breakfast - certainly a Southern staple of which I knew very little until I ventured South from the Illiwimichiana Sea to attend college in Charleston, SC. The US was still a pretty insular, regionified country in the mid '50s, and cross-regional cuisine as we know it now extremely rare. An Irish Catholic from the Chicago area, I was used to Meat and Potatoes, always served at the principal meal -- a meal consumed circa 6:00pm. On the rare occasions when my mother cooked and served rice it was considered rather exotic, and was served only with butter. Of course, we detested it, as well as the subsequent rice pudding which usually made its appearance a day or so later.
Suddenly I found myself at The Citadel, in the "Low Country" of South Carolina, eating the main meal at noon, with nary a potato in sight! And rice, lots and lots of rice, on an pretty much daily basis. Thinking back to family meals in Yankeeland I of course disdained the stuff at first, and kept looking around for potatoes. Well, as I've noted earlier, a 17 year old Plebe has a prodigious appetite, and hunger outweighs unfamiliarity any day of the week. I observed my Dixiecupper fellow plebes mixing their rice with gravy, and almost anything else on the table. Delicious, a most wonderful purveyor of gravy, an excellent addition to chili, and a great way to capture errant peas and other small stuff. (No insignificant aid when one is eating a "Square Meal," and gets only occasional glimpses of what is on one's plate.)
In the 60's I married a nice Irish-Catholic girl, and it was back to potatoes. (I've often thought the real reason for the Potato Famine was that the O'Connors had not yet left Ireland, and were cornering the supply.) Then the USAF in its infinite wisdom sent us to Taiwan - glorious land of rice. Our Amah did all (or most) of the cooking, and at first the menus were set by my Irish bride -- thus more potatoes. (Imported by the Commissary.) One night I had a brilliant thought -- the Amah could fix BOTH potatoes and rice, and domestic and gastronomic harmony was thus assured. In fact, over the past 46 years my bride has slowly acquired a taste for rice, and we now probably have it more often than potatoes, especially since I purchased a rice cooker, a most wonderful invention.

Southern Rice - Tommy Armstrong
My mother was from Savannah and her mother from Beaufort (SC). We had rice with every meal--only got real potatoes when went and visited my grandparents on my fathers side (NC).
My mother's family were some of the largest rice planters in SC (the Heywards) and I ended up with my great, great, grandmothers plantation cookbook. It has I think 9 different recipes for rice bread in it. My grandmother was the pre-eminent caterer in Savannah for over 40 years and I inherited her receipts, as she called them, also. One of these days need to write a cookbook. Shrimp Creole over rice was one of my mothers favorite dishes to cook -- good stuff. Fresh okra, tomatoes, etc. with fresh "river" shrimp. Low Country cooking different from any other kind of Southern cooking. A blend of African, French, American Indian, and English--where frying is not the dominant method of cooking as in other parts of the South.

The Rice - Roberta Lovatelli
2 C long-grain rice
3 tablespoons of oil
1 onion, peeled cut thinly
1 tomato, peeled and chopped
1 1/2 tsp salt
Heat the oil in a skillet, when the oil is runny, add the rice and onion stirring, over very low heat until the rice makes a swishing sound. It take about 10 to 15 minutes. Stir in the tomato and salt. Add two cups boiling water, just be careful and do it slowly as it might spit at you. Bring the rice to a boil; lower heat, cover and cook for 25 minutes.

Hot Pepper Rice - Rowen
I made a tasty rice dish yesterday. I'd had a really good recipe, then couldn't find it, so kind of made this one up. It was a hit, but isn't the same as the one I lost which was really creamy. That one didn't use wild rice, and I think it baked a lot longer with more liquids, so perhaps the rice 'mushed' more.
Cook 1 c. wild rice with 3 c. water and 1 chicken boullion cube for about an hour.
Add 2 c. water and 1 c. white rice and cook another 20 minutes.

Mix 1-2 tsp. seasoned salt, 1 c. sour cream, 1/2 c. cottage cheese, a couple of ounces. of chopped almonds, and 1/2 small can chopped jalepeno peppers (or if you like it hotter, use more)
When the rice is done mix about 2/3 - 3/4 of the rice with the mixture. (The rest of the rice is leftover. Put it in the refrigerator for using later in something else like soup. Of course you could just cook less.) Put about half of it in a large casserole (10x10? - you want lots of surface area so the top is nicely crunchy), then cover with about a cup of shredded mozzarella. Put the other half in, cover with more mozzarella and about a cup or so of shredded parmesan. Bake at 350 for 30 minutes. or more. The top should be brown and bubbly. If you're taking it someplace you can reheat it in the microwave, and then broil it for a couple of minutes to crisp up the top.
You can make a variety by layering the rice, sour cream mixture, cheese, instead of mixing the first two together. The result is different because if you layer them they don't blend together.

Leftover Rice - Lois
And for the leftover rice, there's a use with leftover chicken or turkey. Mix obvious portions of wild rice, turkey/chicken, red grapes, chopped onion, pecans, mayonnaise. Makes a really good salad, and it keeps a long time. Must be the onions.

Cooking Rice - DJE
Rice is nice, grits is da pits, at least in our house.
Decades ago when microwave ovens first became affordable, I remember commenting that every bachelor passing the age of 25 should be issued one. (Charlie Brown said every kid over a particular age should be issued a dog, but that would be another thread.)
Anyway, no costly rice cooker is needed if you have a microwave, as who does not these days? Two to one water to rice, using spring or bottled water if your local water (as in SoCal) is rock-hard without needing freezing to get that way, plus a half-teaspoon of salt (NOT necessarily kosher salt!) per cup of rice. Cover. 3:33 on high, 16:66 at 33%, wait 1 minute. With our oven at least, it's tender, fluffy and separate-grained, perfect rice for all suitable endeavors.
Spuds are good too. One person's ideal carbohydrate source is another person's yuck. It all ends up the same after digestion. We also eat Quaker Oats, and even eat Cream of Wheat as well as shoot it.
My wife once cooked rice in the microwave with 2 rice and 1 water -- it came out rather firm. Also memorable was the time she hit an extra digit on the keypad and the rice ended up being cooked for 166:66 (over 2-3/4 hours.) Incinerated rice is hard to scrape off the oven walls, and the smell lingers for years. In almost all else she's an excellent cook, and could quote at least as many of my culinary gaffes...

Fried Rice
Gary Sims Or maybe I mean fry-able rice.
I'm planning pork fried rice in a style we learned in... well, Nationalist China actually. But I wasn't the cook in the family then. So I'm working from forty-five year old memory and Cindy's notes, which are like most notes by good cooks. Just the bits she might forger. To hell with novices like me.
You start with a couple of tablespoons of an oil. I suppose that can be fat rendered from the small diced pork parts to be added back later, but she doesn't say and heaven knows how potent that might make the flavor. I'll probably wimp out and use extra virgin olive oil.
The rice is sautéed in the oil until golden, then you add... well, a bunch of other stuff including water to suit the quantity of rice used and let it all steam/simmer in the covered skillet until the water is absorbed, make a hole in the middle, put in a couple of beaten eggs and stir them into the rice so you get shreds of cooked eggs throughout th... well, that's a full recipe.
The question is, oh all knowing list: Which of the myriad varieties of rice would be appropriate for this type of sauté then simmer dish?
Skip myriad. I'll settle for what I can find at the local Vons. Or perhaps a side trip to that farmer's market style of thingy whose name I can never = remember. (They send a catalog full of old line drawings to which they add half-funny captions about food.) We have one of those if the difference is worth an extra stop.
I really only know three varieties of rice, but I'm willing to learn more: long-grain, short-grain and Minute.

Susan Wenger
I've watched them make delicious fried rice at the Japanese restaurant (think Benihana and the ilk), where they cook at your table.
For fried rice, they squirt some oil onto the table. If there are children at the table, they make a smiley face in oil and set it on fire, but you don't have to do that. So start with hot oil and a large pat of butter. The usual patter is, they ask the child, "would you like to see a butterfly? They toss the butter onto the table and say "butterfly." Fry up some onions in it. At this point, they usually slice one onion, stack the slices into a cone, pour some oil into the center, and light it up to make a volcano. "That's not Etna," they explain. That's Fuji. At the Japanese restaurant, they add cooked peas, sliced scallions, tiny carrot bits, and bean sprouts. Then they add a very small portion of raw meat - diced steak, diced shrimp, diced chicken, whatever they've got. Add one cup per person of cooked white rice, very well drained, preferably having sat for about ten minutes so it's cooled a bit and completely dry. Then they play with the eggs, tossing them high in the air, catching them unbroken in the spatula or flat side of the knife, tossing again, catching them in their toque, tossing them again and they land on the edge of the knife and break. They quickly scramble the egg and mix it into the rice and veggies. Then they season it with much more soy sauce and salt and pepper and MSG than I would use at home. Then they pretend to serve everyone except the largest (read fattest) man at the table. That man gets about two grains of rice. Everyone laughs the obligatory chuckle, and then they serve that man a hefty portion for being such a good sport. The oil is so hot that individual rice grains bounce in it. The whole procedure doesn't cook long, except for the theatrical portions. The actual cooking is very fast.

David Scheidt
Don't use olive oil. It's entirely the wrong oil. It'll work just fine, but it's the wrong flavor, and none of the Asians really used it. Pork fat would be good, or rice bran oil, or peanut oil, or just plain canola or corn oils. If you must use an olive oil, use a lower grade than extra virgin or virgin. Something filtered and colorless....
You use what ever rice you've got. Fried rice is really a way to use up left over, cooked, rice. But if you're cooking rice just for this, a non-sticky, long grained variety would be my choice. Basmati, basmati-like, or a jasmine.

Robin Welch
I would use brown rice because it's vastly more nutritious (authenticity be damned). And peanut oil (for authenticity!).

Jan Garvin
I like the flavor of a few drops of dark sesame oil added into the wok or grill.
Use whatever rice you've got. It's hard to screw it up.

Astrid Bear
When I make fried rice, I use canola oil, which can be cooked at a hotter temperature and doesn't add any flavor. And I use leftover cooked short-grain rice, the Japanese sort I make for stir-fry, teriyaki, etc. The rice needs to be cold, and you have to crumble it so it's not a monoblock of rice.
My procedure is this:
Lightly film a non-stick pan with oil, heat to mediumish, add a whisked egg and make a very thin omelet, just cooked on one side. Slide that out onto a cutting board, and slice into smallish strips. Add more oil to the pan and crank up the heat. Throw in some hot pepper flakes and let them infuse the oil, then toss in ample chopped garlic quickly followed by chopped onion, so that the garlic doesn't brown. Stir-fry until the onion is softening a bit, then add the rice and toss to coat the grains with oil. Cook until the rice is thoroughly hot and crisping a bit, then drizzle with some soy sauce. Start adding your prepped meats and veggies -- cubed ham steak, maybe some broccoli, carrots, what have you. Let those heat up, then add the more tender veggies, pea pods or frozen peas, sliced green onions, and your egg strips. If you need to add a bit of liquid to steam the dish and get the veggies cooked to your taste, do so and cover it for a couple of minutes. Before serving, toss with sesame oil.

John Gosden
Here in Thailand, where Khao pad (stir-fried rice) is one of the staple dishes, they start with COOKED rice (long grain, of course, and preferably jasmine rice). The spring onions (scallions) and other ingredients (soy sauce, chilli, whatever, plus ginger (if it is for me) and a meat such as cooked pork or chicken, or raw prawns) are then stir fried, and the rice mixed in at the end.

Linnea
That sounds like the kind of rice I learned to make...like the Elks Lodge restaurant served in the Canal Zone and much like the U. S. Army wife who gave Chinese cooking classes made. (Oh, was my family happy I took those classes! Me, too.)
I always used cold cooked rice, I think I heated up raw rice one time to see how we liked it, stirring it in canola oil. I loved Kikkoman soy sauce and miss that dreadfully.
My recipe would have had lots of green spring onions, yes the ginger, garlic, shrimp or diced leftover pork, celery if there was any in the Commissary, lots of parsley of course since I liked parsley.
I think I used a good brand of chicken broth too at times to cook my rice. That goes with meat or seafood.
I had a beautiful wok and all. It wasn't til the latest years there that I realized I could save any dabs of leftover Chinese food and heat up chicken broth, add the dabs, and have that for lunch with Kikkoman sauce to taste.

Alice Gomez
From Penzeys Spices:
Fried rice is the perfect way to turn leftover rice into an even better meal the second time around. To avoid mushy results, the steamed rice needs to be cold and somewhat dry. This is best accomplished by spreading the cooked rice onto a shallow baking sheet and refrigerating, uncovered, overnight.
2 tablespoons sesame oil, divided
4 cups cold cooked medium grain rice (do not use instant rice)
1/2 pound medium raw shrimp, shelled and deveined, or cubed tofu, or leftover cooked chicken or pork
2 eggs lightly beaten
1/4 teaspoon pepper
1/4 cup minced red onion, or 2 green onions, finely sliced
1/4 - 1/2 teaspoon minced garlic
2 cups pea pods or snap peas, cleaned and cut in half, if large
3-6 tien tsin chili peppers, or other red pepper flakes (optional)
2-3 tablespoons soy sauce
dash hot sauce, if desired
In a heavy-bottomed fry pan or wok, heat 1 TB. of the sesame oil over medium high heat. While the oil is heating, remove the rice from the fridge and break up any clumps. Lightly whisk the eggs. Drizzle the eggs into the pan and sprinkle with pepper, stirring frequently with a wooden spoon or spatula until the egg is scrambled and broken up. Raise the heat a bit and push the egg to the side. Add the remaining TB. of sesame oil along with onion and garlic, stir, then add shrimp/tofu/chicken/pork and cook 1-2 minutes, stirring often. Add the peas and tien tsin peppers if using, and cook another minute. Add rice and mix everything together, stirring until rice is hot - about 4 minutes. Sprinkle with soy sauce as you cook, add a few shakes of hot sauce at this point too, as desired. Serve hot or room temperature. Do not eat the tien tsin peppers; discard or push to the side while eating.

Risotto
Anna Ravano
For the real thing, you need a round-grained variety of Italian rice called Arborio. Other types of Italian rice will also do, especially Vialone, but long-grain rice is definitely a no-no.

Risotto Alla Milanese also known as Risotto Allo Zafferano (Milanese Saffron Risotto) - Serves 4
There are several versions (with or without bone marrow, with white wine or marsala, with chicken stock or meat stock), but here's the one my Milanese-bred mother used to make.
250 gr. Arborio rice
110 gr. butter
at least 1 litre good meat stock
30 gr beef marrow (optional)
1/2 glass dry Marsala or 1 glass dry white wine
1 average-sized onion
1 pinch of saffron powder (the tip of a coffee spoon should be enough)
50 gr grated Parmesan cheese
salt
Heat up the meat stock and keep hot.
Melt 79 gr. butter in a saucepan (ideally an earthenware one), add the thinly-sliced onion and fry gently stirring often until the onion has become translucid - don't let it brown. (At this point, if you wish, you should add the beef marrow). Pour in the rice and stir until it's all impregnated with the butter (it'll take 1 or 2 minutes). Add the wine or Marsala, put up the heat and cook until the wine is reduced by half.
Add enough stock to cover the rice; add the saffron previously dissolved in a coffee-cupful of cold stock. Continue cooking on a lively heat, stirring often, and adding more stock as it becomes absorbed (a ladleful at the time should do). Cooking time depends on personal taste. If you like your rice 'al dente', 15-20 minutes should be enough. The mixture should not be thick, but rather be on the creamy side: the Milanese phrase is "all'onda", "on the wave".
Remove the saucepan from the heat and add the remaining butter, cubed, and the parmesan stirring until they have melted. Add salt if necessary. Leave for 3-5 minutes, to allow the various flavours to blend. Serve with more grated parmesan separately.

Rice With Mushrooms - Serves 3-4
200-250 gr. Arborio rice
1 litre meat or chicken stock, hot
50 gr butter + one biggish knob of butter
1 small onion, thinly sliced
200 gr fresh mushrooms (ceps or champignons), sliced
1 small glass of dry white whine
50 gr grated Parmesan cheese
Melt the butter in a saucepan, add the onion, and when it is golden brown add the mushrooms and stir.
Pour in the rice and stir for 2-3 minutes on a moderate heat. Add the wine, and when it's almost completely evaporated add about 3/4 of the hot stock.
Put up the heat and let it cook without a lid, stirring frequently, and adding more stock, a little at a time, as the mixture thickens.
Just before the rice has reached the firmness you prefer (for me, it's after about 20 minutes), turn off the heat, leaving the saucepan on the hot hob, and stir in the knob of butter and the cheese. Taste and add salt if necessary. Leave to rest for 3-5 minutes before serving.

From Elizabeth David, "Italian Food", Penguin Books:
Risotto Di Peoci (Risotto with Mussels - a Venetian dish)
Allow a pint of mussels per person. When they are scrubbed and cleaned heat a little olive oil in a large pan, and add to it 1 oz. of butter, a chopped clove of garlic, and a little chopped parsley. Put in the mussels and cook them until they are open. Remove them at once from the pan, and when they have cooled shell them.
In the meantime have ready a white risotto (see below). When it is nearly cooked add the liquid from the mussels, 1 oz. each of butter and grated cheese, and the shelled mussels. (A few of the mussels can be left unshelled, to decorate the dish.)

White Risotto
A plain risotto cooked in the same way at "risotto alla milanese", omitting the beef marrow and the saffron, and using water instead of stock. White wine can be added, as for risotto alla milanese, or not, as you please. For a fish risotto it is best to add it.

Ruth Abrams
I learned the basic formula for risotto from Sundays at Moosewood Restaurant. Here is how I made mine: I sauteed three finely chopped shallots in olive oil. When they were translucent I added a cup and a half of arborio rice. I turned the rice in the oil and shallot until it was well coated and shiny. Then I added 1/2 cup of white wine. When the wine was absorbed, I began adding warm ersatz chicken stock, 1/2 cup at a time, stirring the rice frequently with a wooden spoon. All together I put 5-6 cups of warm stock into the rice. Part way through cooking I added about a pound of chopped fresh spinach. At the end, when there was only about a cup of stock left, I added a cup of frozen peas. I added the last cup of hot stock right before I served the risotto.

Bruce Trinque
I keep a couple boxes of Arborio in the cupboard, ready for risotto. Here's a recipe I like -- simple, colorful and tasty:
Red Wine Risotto
2 to 2 1/4 cups chicken stock, your own or a good reduced-salt canned variety
3 tablespoons butter
1 medium chopped onion
1 cup Arborio rice
2 1/4 cups red wine (such as Merlot or Shiraz)
Grated Parmesan to serve
Salt and pepper
Heat the stock in a saucepan or in the microwave and keep it warm on the side of the stove.
Over medium or low heat, melt half the butter in a heavy saucepan, rather shallow if possible. Add the onion, salt and pepper and saute for about 5 to 7 minutes, until soft, but not brown.
Stir in the rice and saute until all the butter is absorbed, about 2 minutes.
Stir in about half of the wine, with a little more salt and pepper. Simmer, stirring, until the rice starts to get dry, about 5 to 7 minutes. Add a couple of ladlefuls of warm stock, and when it starts to get dry again, add the rest of the wine. You need to keep stirring. As the rice dries, keep adding stock. At the end of the cooking, the rice should be tender, but still with a bit of a chew (al dente). The dish becomes creamy as the starch is released from the rice. The whole thing takes 25 to 35 minutes.
Remove from the heat. Add the rest of the butter, and stir. Taste and add more seasoning if needed. Serve in soup bowls with the grated Parmesan. Best served right away. Enough for 6 as a first course or 3 as a main course.

Kerry Webb
Avoid using stock with a high salt content. There's a type of stock cube sold here that's completely vegetable in origin, but engineered to taste like chicken, beef, and .. vegetable!
Anyway, it's very good for most recipes, but we tried it in a risotto recently, but the end result was waaaay too salty.