So there I was eating at Downtown HiSAM when two girlfriends sitting next to me brought up the subject of cheating risotto, and of course, I had to eavesdrop. (They were sitting ten inches away from me, so how could I not?) American home cooks are probably not inclined to baby a pot of rice for twenty-plus minutes, so shortcuts are understandable. Following a less forgivable suggestion of Crock-Pot risotto was making the rice in a rice cooker ahead of time, cooling it, and stirring in the rest of the ingredients while reheating.
My tip, which I was characteristically too shy to proclaim audibly, is to add a splash of cream to the rice at the end of cooking. The amylopectin that surrounds each grain (provided you're using serious risotto rice) and melts away to create that natural creamy texture we all cherish is generally not released much in the rice cooker, so just a bit of cream will combine with any residual starches and help everything adhere better to each other.
Itch scratched.
