Risotto is a lot of trouble, but every once in a while it’s worth it, especially if you can turn it into a main dish. I came up with this recipe myself, on the fly; I think the quantities and directions are pretty accurate but risotto-making is not an exact science; feel free to play around with quantities and temperatures as required by your equipment.
* Arborio rice used to be hard to find here, but I can get it easily at Kroger in Shelbyville; you will sometimes find it labeled as “risotto rice” or something like that.
* I did not use low-sodium broth because I forgot that you end up evaporating down some of the liquid, which increases its saltiness. Learn from my mistake. (I had also used the salted cooking wine, another mistake.)
* If you don’t want to use the wine, simply replace it with additional broth.
* Use the parmesan from the dairy section, not the shelf-stable stuff that you find in the pasta aisle, because the shelf-stable cheese has anti-clumping additives and doesn’t melt as well. Buy a hunk and grate it yourself, if possible, or at least buy the good kind sold already grated in tubs in the dairy section.

1/2 lb. Italian sausage, hot or mild
1 cup arborio rice
1 small onion, diced
3 cloves garlic, minced
3 cups (or more) low-sodium chicken broth
1 t. dried basil
1/2 cup white wine
2 oz. parmesan cheese, grated
Black pepper

Pour the broth into a saucepan and warm it up (simmer or a little below) on a back burner on the stove. If you have a 32-ounce box of broth, go ahead and warm the entire box, because you may end up needing more than three cups.

If the sausage is in links, remove the casings. Crumble the sausage into a heavy 10″ skillet and brown it thoroughly over high heat. Drain the sausage, reserving 2 tablespoons of the grease, and set aside. Return the skillet to the heat, reduce it to medium, and add the reserved grease, the rice and the onions. Cook over medium heat, stirring constantly, for about two minutes. Add the minced garlic.

Now for the risotto-making. Begin adding the broth in small doses. Stir constantly; each dose must be gone before you add the next dose. At first, more of the broth will seem to evaporate than be absorbed, but be patient. Stir constantly. Keep adding the broth in small doses. Eventually, the rice will begin to soften and the starch it releases will combine with the broth to form a creamy sauce. Add the basil. When the risotto seems to be getting nearly soft enough, you can start alternating doses of wine with doses of broth. (You don’t have to heat the wine, because the risotto has enough mass and temperature at this point to handle a little bit of room-temperature liquid.)

When the rice is soft enough (the grains are as soft as normal cooked long-grain rice), reduce the heat to low and begin adding the parmesan cheese in small doses, stirring it to melt it into the creamy sauce. Add the cooked sausage, combine thoroughly, and warm the mixture through. Add black pepper to taste.