Mushroom/Salmon Risotto

• 1 tbs stock concentrate or a bullion cube
• 8 cups water
• 2 bay leaves
• 1 oz dried mushrooms, such as 4-6 dried shitakes
• 1 lb crimini and/or portabello mushrooms
• 2 cups arborio rice
• 3 tbs butter
• About 1/4 cup pure olive oil
• 1 large onion
• 4 cloves garlic
• 3/4 cup red wine
• 8 to 12 oz quality hot-smoked salmon (not canned)
• Salt to taste, and pepper
• Parmigiano, romano, or grana padano cheese (optional)
• 4-qt pot, dutch oven, ladle, wide shallow frying pan (pref. 14")

Wash the mushrooms.  Stem them, and keep the stems. Slice them into bite-sized pieces.

Make the stock: put the bullion, water, mushroom stems, dried mushooms, bay leaves, and the ends of the onions you diced into the 4-qt pot.  Simmer for 20-30 minutes while you prep the other ingredients.

Dice the onion and mince the garlic.  Divide the garlic in half and the onion into 2/3 and 1/3.

When the mushroom stock is almost done, make the rice: heat 2 tbs of butter and 2 tbs of olive oil in the dutch oven.  Fry the 2/3 diced onion and half the garlic until the onion is translucent.  Dump in the rice, and stir around until the rice is coated with butter and is hot.  Pour in the wine; stir and let it mostly boil off.  Continue to cook the rice but ladling in 2 or 3 ladles of mushroom stock at a time and stirring periodically, trying to neither let the rice get dry, nor very soupy.  

While the rice is cooking, cook the mushrooms. Heat the frying pan very hot.  Add 1 tbs of butter and 1 or 2 tbs of olive oil.  Dump in the rest of the onion and garlic, followed quickly by the mushrooms.  Saute them, stirring occasionally, until they've shrunken and browned a bit.  Salt and pepper them to taste.

In the meantime, the rice should be close to done.  Italians like to stop while it's still chewy; I like to keep adding stock until it's a little closer to fully cooked, and the grains have only a tiny sliver of white center.  Turn off the heat, and mix in the mushrooms and smoked salmon.  Put a lid on and leave for 10 minutes.

Serve with cheese for diners to grate themselves if you want it.  Eat with red wine.

Notes:

You could probably do this with canned/boxed mushroom stock.  If you try it, let me know how it comes out.

Unlike white wine, where you can use just about anything, red wine for cooking should be good enough for drinking or you'll ruin the dish.  For this risotto, good reds would be a blended table wine, chianti, syrah, young merlot, grenache, or any other light-to-medium red without oak.  You can drink the rest of the bottle.