Truffles and Risotto

I hate making risotto.

It's not that I don't know how to make it or its painful (though the constant stirring kinda sucks) it just takes longer than almost every book I have on the subject says it should, 20 minutes and 5 cups of stock for 1.5 cups of rice

I heat 5 cups of stock on the stove
I put a heavy bottomed high sided pot on the stove
I heat 1.5 cups of arborio rice in the heavy bottomed high sided pot until they are translucent (for three to five minutes)

add ladle of stock and stir until most of the liquid is absorbed (repeat ad infinitum)

Stock is gone, rice is still hard in the center and i am on minute 25.

2 more cups of stock and another 10 minutes of constant stirring and its good, tastes perfect and has a great texture.

But why 35 minutes and 2 cups of stock more than expected?

When I figure it out I will tell you.

However I still needed to dress the risotto up a little.

I have truffles I would like to use, thats a no brainer
rather than add salt I added 1 cup shredded Parmigiano-Reggiano
the Parmigiano-Reggiano melted well but started to seize up the rice more than I liked, so I decided to break a cardinal rule and added 1/4 cup of cream and a pat of butter.

I prefer to never add cream to risotto as I feel its cheating and the rice itself should make the creaminess. This is special though since cream works so well with truffle and the cheese needed thinning a bit....stop looking at me that way.

I grabbed my new handy dandy micro-planer I got for Xmas from my wonderful wife, and whipped a fresh black truffle out of the rice bag in the fridge. I inhaled deeply that wonderful sweet earthy smell. I set the little black jewel in place and ran it across the brand new micro-planer. Once, twice, three times, four times this is easy and fast, far better than a grater SLICE..

So I'm looking into a Kevlar glove to keep the blood in my risotto to a minimum.

My wife wasn't happy that I felt the need to photograph the risotto before serving but she got over it rather quickly.