The most illuminating addition I’ve read is by Elizabeth David, who seems always to have had the right terminology for everything. Her risotto instructions say that the rice should be “impregnated” by butter before the wine is added. The rice goes from being transparent to being opaque, and seems filled up. Maybe the truest evidence of the almost sacramental simplicity of Italian risotto cooking is a dish called risotto in cantina for which risotto is made with onion, wine, butter, and broth, and then served in a bowl of sharp white wine, which is, we are firmly instructed, not to be mixed
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