Whiskey risotto

We officially made it to the fall 🌰 and the Holiday season ✨ and as it is customary, we are sharing one of our risottos!

This one will make many people happy as it checks many boxes: gluten free, vegetarian and possibly vegan too, alcohol free so the kids and people on meds can enjoy it too 😋It can also be easily tweaked to fit your personal taste and the ingredients you have access to wherever you are based! So, feel free to modify accordingly if none of our suggestions work out for you.

in November the artichoke season starts in Piedmont: our risotto 

We usually make it to kick up our special occasions and this year we are serving it for our Thanksgiving Day dinner here in Turin, just during the week-end as everyone abroad does 😅

Let us also remind you that in Italy, risotto is a cooking method and the basic recipe (here) is the base for most risottos.

As Piedmont is the top European rice producer, up here, we are very fond of our risottos made with our regional rice variants, wines and products. 

On a final note, the real Italian risotto is creamy and not soupy! This is even more important than AL DENTE even though as all our guests in Turin learn, Italian cook al dente to allow the pancreas and the liver to put in some extra work during the digestion so the sugars of the carbs are burned and ultimately, this is why Italy doesn't have as many cases of diabetes as in many other countries...

Any whiskey or bourbon you have at home or like will do

Whiskey Risotto

Amounts for 4 Italian portions in a big menu, or 2 portions if this is all you'll eat plus dessert:

• rice: 300gr or 1.5 C any rice variety will work, in Italy we use our locally grown short grain 
• evoo: 4 tablespoons
• whiskey of your choice: 1dl or 0.5 C 
• vegetable stock: 1L or 4 C 
• bay leaves: 2
• grated Parmigiano Reggiano DOP / vegan option or diced whiskey cheddar cheese: 80gr or 2/3 C minimum
• pepper

Optional = pick and choose, omit, substitute or mix 

chopped fresh ginger  2 tsp or 1 shallot

• for color: 16gr of powdered saffron or 1/4 tsp turmeric 

• to add fibers and nutrients: 300gr / 2.5C diced pumpkin  or 340gr / 2C thinly sliced artichokes or 300gr or 2 C of sautéed Jerusalem artichokes, or a mix 

• to garnish: 10 slices of crispy bacon bites or 100gr / 0.22LB prosciutto crispy bits

• for extra creaminess: 85ml or 1/3C heavy whipping cream or vegan substitute or 60gr / 4 T soft goat cheese - NO mascarpone cheese 😉

Don't forget your wooden spoon!

Photo courtesy of Butta La Pasta

Preparation:

1. If you are planning to garnish your risotto with bacon bites, this is your first step and you can prepare it the day before, if you are opting for crispy prosciutto bits, you can prepare them while the risotto is cooking.

Arrange the prosciutto slices or the bacon cut into 3-4 pieces on a parchment-lined baking dish:

-> 400F /200C for 20min for bacon

-> 370F / 188C for about 12min for the prosciutto - keep an eye on it after 9 min because it burns easily, cool on a rack and crumble to garnish

both meats need to cook till crispy

2. If you are including the vegetables in your risotto, clean and dice the pumpkin, slice the artichokes allowing them to soak in cold water with lemon juice to clean them without having them turn black; clean and dice your Jerusalem artichokes and sprinkle them with some lemon juice so they won't turn black.

3. Warm up your vegetable stock or prepare one using a bouillon cube.

Irish whiskey Cheddar cheese, photo courtesy of The Cheesemaker

4. if using the shallot or the ginger, chop the fresh ginger or the shallot and sautée it in your deep pot with the evoo and the 2 bay leaves for 2-3 minutes. Add in the rice and stir it with your wooden spoon till the rice grains turn translucent.

If omitting the chopped shallot / ginger, directly sauté the rice with butter and bay leaves.

5. Add half of the whiskey and keep stirring till all the whiskey is absorbed by the rice.

6. This is when you add the turmeric and the vegetables if any, otherwise, go to the next step. 

If you are planning to add the saffron, you'll do it at the end.

7. Add just enough stock to cover the rice and lower the heat to simmer.

8. Set your timer for 13 minutes, yet watch your risotto as the stock will get absorbed multiple times.

risotto with pumpkin and bacon bites

9. As soon as the stock gets absorbed, add some more and repeat. Stir your risotto everytime you add the stock -risotto isn't a high maintenance dish, so it doesn't require constant stirring.

10. After 13minutes, taste it and see if you like its texture: if you feel it needs 5 more minutes, add some stock and keep cooking it. 

When it is ALMOST ready, remove the bay leaves and add the remaining half of the whiskey and keep stirring.

11. When the whiskey is also absorbed, remove from the heat, add some pepper - If you are using saffron, stir it in now, otherwise go to the next step.

At this stage the risotto is already creamy and if you aren't planning on adding any cheese or making it extra creamy, you can serve it and go to step 13 for the bacon or prosciutto garnish.

risotto with Jerusalem artichokes and soft goat cheese

12. In Italy, we like to stir in the grated parm to add some sapidity and some heavy cream or soft goat cheese to make it extra creamy. However, if you have access to whiskey cheddar cheese, that will actually complement your risotto perfectly.

If adding cheese or heavy cream, let rest 5 min before serving.

13. Finally: garnish each portion with some crispy bacon bites or prosciutto crispy bits for added flavor, crispness and dimension! 

Pairings:

you can naturally sip the same whiskey you used for this risotto or keep our Piedmont terroir with our:  

white wines: Timorasso DOC or Arneis DOCG

red wines: Barbera d'Asti or look for a young Barolo

If you don't have access to any of them, go for any Italian wine of your choice, a Chardonnay, a Sauvignon or any other wine you love!

Remember: the food you make and the wines you'll serve are like the clothes you wear, they need to feel good to you all 😇

risotto is very versatile

Have a delicious Thanksgiving Day if you are celebrating it and a great start of the Holiday season. May this and all our other risottos be part of your special occasions 🎉

📧Email Lucia: turinepi@gmail.com 

for your cooking classes in Turin or online, your private tours, your relocation to Italy, and anything else we can help you with.

🚀And you love cooking and Italian or are interested in wines, we also offer these private classes:

- Italian classes for cooking 

- Italian classes for wine lovers

- cooking classes for students of Italian 

- wine tastings for Italian learners

- food and wine writing classes for Italian learners

Feed your body and mind with Turin Epicurean Capital, amici 💃

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at Pepino's enjoying a pinguino!

Italian geography

Geography inspires travels, daydreams by giving many clues about the people who live in far and away lands. And Italian geography is an integral part of Italian culture and language because as all students of Italian 101 learn within the first week of class: the Italian spelling is done with the Italian cities. And all native Italians know all the Italian cities, where they are located and their wider regions.

People educated in Italian schools learn their own geography in elementary and middle school and like most Europeans, they know the major facts about the 20 regions that make up the boot. However, many non-Europeans who plan to visit or move to Italy judge Italian geography useless and most even refuse to learn the few Italian cities whose first letter make up their full name.

Unfortunately, when you can't spell your name with Italian cities, you can't book or make any reservations and Italians have no clue about non-Italian sounds, even more so when you have a non-Italian spelling...

One extra reason to savor Italian geography is that it comes with its diverse history, costumes, dialects, specific words, expressions and use of the grammar typical of only specific areas.

In fact, despite the stereotypes: Italy isn't a monoculture and the Italian friendliness you perceive is in most cases just a façade. This is even truer in business situations like long term renting, buying properties and doing business.

Therefore be aware of any Italian language class that doesn't teach the alphabet with the names of the Italian cities because you'll be missing a useful part and won't be able to spell your name properly. Plus, you'll be missing all the Italian culture bits that come with it...

Take private Italian classes with us: turinepi@gmail.com

Turin time

There are always interesting things to know about Turin before making it over here, even only to soften your landing, culturally speaking. Whether Turin is your 1st Italian destination or your 20th, most things will be newer to you than you had expected. Naturally, this applies to native Italians too because as you may already know: Italy is a tiny and very diverse boot made up of 20 very distinct regions.

During our cross cultural workshops and relocation sessions, we always explain how the concept of one whole monocultural Italy has never existed. Thus the lack of a national sense in favor of the more common 'campanilismo' or affectionate attachment to our own little village church belltower. 

Words and their origins always give us nice insights on the culture of the language they belong to and campanile is the church belltower where the bell rings every 15 minutes to mark the time and remind us where we are in our day. Yet, paraphrasing Kant, time and space are both universal and subjective and especially time is a very fluid dimension here in the boot.

Unlike what you see represented by most Non-Italian tv and cinema productions, and even if you have already visited other more touristy Italian places, once you are in Turin, you'll soon find out for yourself how what easily works out in Rome and Sicily doesn't necessarily work up in Northern Italy, especially here in the Northwest.

wandering in Turin

In the blink of an eye, May is almost gone, as well as the 37th International Book Fair of Turin where 'Lucia of Turinepi' was invited as a guest speaker by Dr Naila Clerici, the Italian expert about the Native Americans, First Nations and Aboriginal People of North America. In 2026 the Turin Book Fair will be on May 14-18.

If you can read and understand Italian, this is the perfect event for you because you'lI find all the Italian publishing houses, including the indie ones, plus tons of guests, presentations, talks and events within the book fair AND many more all around Turin. So, you'll get to hear many authors and will also have the possibility to buy many Italian books, often, those you don't usually find in bookshops.

Photo by Mr B. Menegatti: Dr Naila Clerici, Lucia Hannau and Maura Valleri

3-1 gin risotto

Surprisingly amici, we made it to Easter 🐇 and the Spring veggies and fruits 🍓and as customary, we are sharing with you one of our risotto recipes that you can make into 3 different versions, according to your preferences and occasions.

We are sure that at least one of these 3 versions will save your meal bringing you culinary stardom among your family and friends.

To us risotto is conforting, elegance, tradition, history and identity and this is why it is often what we teach in our cooking classes, available online too.

chocolate, one of Turin's core biz since the late 1600s