The Food Lab: Better Home Cooking Through Science

described as soupy rice—lies somewhere between me and
cheese sauce on her list of greatest loves.¶
As such, I considered it my husbandly duty to discover
not just how to make great risotto, but how to do it in the
most efficient way possible. Everyone knows risotto as the
self-saucing Italian rice dish with the notoriously tedious-to-
prepare reputation. It’s also often stodgy, thick, and heavy.
What is perfect risotto? First off, it should be saucy in
texture. A perfect plate of risotto should flow like lava if you
tilt the plate. Spoon it onto a hot dish (and you must use a
hot dish), and it should slowly spread out until it forms a
perfectly level disk. Sticky, tacky, or, worse, gluey are
words that should never enter your head when eating it.
If it can stack up into a clump like this . . .