RISOTTO: Risotto is the rice dish of northern Italy. In the north of Italy, up around the Piedmont, Milan, Lombardy, and the area of Venice, rice rules the day. How to Make Risotto. Link

Rice came to Italy sometime in the 10th century, probably brought to Sicily by Arab conquerors. The north of Italy took to rice farming four to five hundred years later, in an era when plague and famine were making simple survival difficult. The area has remained the premier rice growing and rice eating areas of Italy to this day. In the same way that people in the rest of Italy put plates of piping hot pasta on the table at every main meal, so too do northerners resort to rice.

And more often than not, rice in northern Italy means risotto. The plural is rosotti.

Like pasta, risotto can be made from start to finish in about thirty minutes. Both pasta and risotto are well suited to all sorts of occasions, from fancy meal to simply cleaning out whatever happens to be left over in the refrigerator. Like pasta, risotto is great comfort food. Like pasta, it can be made with or without meat. They're both great with cheese. And like pasta, risotto seems right to be eaten often.

In Italy, risotto is serve mounded, steaming hot, in the center of warmed individual shallow bowls. Using a fork or a spoon, the grains of cooked rice are pushed out slightly toward the edge of the bowl, eating only from the pulled out ring of rice around the edges in a circle. This will keep the central part of the risotto hot and dissipate some of the steam before eating the grains around the edge.