Risotto secrets

There was a time making risotti fell right out of fashion, most especially in Sharj where, for reasons which have still not been wholly divined, our risotti started to go badly wrong. Was it the water, the stock, the carnaroli gods? Anyways, ever since it's been hard to summon up much enthusiasm for making risotto, so it was somewhat surprising that I woke this morning knowing that mushroom risotto would be on the menu in the Cross.

I had visions of going down to Borough and picking up all sorts of wild mushrooms, but when I arrived there I was glad that one of the first stalls I saw was a great fruit and veg place where the guy was selling bags of three giant field mushrooms for a quid. Who needs to fork out loads of cash for a handful of cepes when you can have more delicious mushroom than any risotto can take for a nugget? Borough then continued to belie its reputation for priciness as I found another stall where I bought a large box of Kentish strawberries for another pound. These turned out to be probably the nicest strawberries I've ever had in my life as they had a gentle perfumed flavour which was not really apparent from their colour as they were more a deep pink than the dark red of tough supermarket varieties which have presumably been bred to be that colour whatever their stage of ripeness.

Whilst at the market I also bought some cup cakes to take along for a walk on Hampstead Heath which I'm going on manana - new Sunday fave - and reflected on how cup cake fever seems to have suddenly taken over the London foodie scene (these were from Decadent Cakes, who I haven't come across before, and a later report will have to comment on both the vanilla and raspberry varieties).

Where are the risotto secrets he spoke of, you may be asking? And why is he writing in this rather speedy, elliptical style? Can he be reading Midnight's Children at the moment and is the thingumyjig quick-quick, oh yes, style of Mr Rushdie now in his own pen? So, those risotto secrets, based on one succesful dish tonight, so no promises more generally:

1. Set aside the amount of wine you plan to use, then double it, then double that, and now you may have an appropriate amount for a risotto. I've no idea if I cooked with authenticity tonight but the wine-i-ness of the dish was one of its great pleasures and it occurs to me that perhaps a really good risotto needs that alcoholic flavour we know and love in fondue, most especially to leaven what can be the rather leaden taste of the rice.

2. Forget stock cubes because they can often taste nasty and dominate the risotto. Instead, use copious amounts of dried herbs when you cook the rice and onions in butter. I used tarragon and chives today and they worked very well with the wine, but others could be substituted.

3. Cook the vegetables in a separate pan (field mushrooms with butter, garlic, oil, pepper and salt for me) and do not add them to risotto, but place them atop at the end. I kind of always knew that cooking some vegetables in a molten rice mix was not a great way of retaining their flavour, but not letting the vegetables and rice meet at all was a bit of a revelation, though I am willing to learn that it was someone else's idea!

4. Use lots of salt.

5. Serve at least half vegetable mix to half risotto, if not more vegetables, because, to be honest, that's the interesting part, and the risotto is there for texture and for contrast.

Tonight wasn't as good a set of taste memories as a tomato and cheddar risotto from back in the day, but it wasnae bad at all, and my recovering brother was pretty glad of it as a Saturday night meal, which was pleasing.