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The Food Lab: The Road To Better Risotto

At this late stage in the game is there anyone in the world beside hard-line Italians who doesn't know that you can make a perfect bowl luscious, al dente, perfectly mantecato risotto without preheating your broth or stirring constantly? That said, I've still got a ton of risotto questions left unanswered, so this week I decided to test just about every aspect of risotto I could think of to separate fact from fiction. Which type of rice is best? How much do you really need to stir? Is toasting necessary? And what about mounting with cream? 6.6 pounds of risotto later, I've got a few answers.

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69 Comments | Posted by J. Kenji López-Alt, October 11, 2011 at 9:00 AM
Tagged: Italian food, risotto, The Food Lab

Starbucks New Piadinis 'Sandwiches' vs. the Original Italian Piadinas

Yesterday, Starbucks launched a new "breakfast sandwich" called the "piadini," inspired by the Italian flatbread-like "piandina" usually filled with meat and/or cheese and eaten at lunch or snack time. Starbucks' piadina introduction was basically screaming for a comparison, and once we got real Italians involved, the taste test results weren't pretty. Initial reaction from Giancarlo Quadalti and Maurizio DeRosa: skepticism. A call up to chef Giancarlo Quadalti of New York's Teodora, Celeste, Bianca, and Fiore—he is from Ravenna, Italy, the home of the piadina—inspired a serious chuckle on the other line. He was equal parts intrigued and frightened. Starbucks is really attempting what sweet, hunched-over Italian women make at streetside kiosks? When we brought him and his good friend,...

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16 Comments | Posted by Erin Zimmer, October 1, 2008 at 9:00 AM
Tagged: breakfast, breakfast sandwiches, Italian food, Starbucks, Teodora