Arborio Rice - Worth the Price?

After watching many cooking shows on television and seeing competitions where risotto is a staple, I decided to try making it. Upon learning that the kind of rice used for this dish is Arborio rice, I went to the grocery store to purchase some. I found it and it was much more than I had bargained for. The brand carried by that particular store was Rice Select and the only size they stocked was a 36-ounce plastic jar for $8.99.

As this was definitely more than expected, the desire to try a risotto dish passed quickly. On subsequent trips to the store, the rice in question received a passing glance from me as I continued to wonder what risotto would be like. Could it really be that good to warrant such a price? On one such trip, the rice was on sale for $6.79 so, with my curiosity brimming over, a jar was purchased and my experimentation with this dish could begin.

There was a recipe for risotto on the jar so this was the one that would be prepared first. The recipe called for two tablespoons of olive oil, two tablespoons of butter, 1/2 cup chopped onion, 1 cup of rice, 3 cups of vegetable or chicken broth. and salt and pepper as desired. Following the directions, I sautéed the chopped onion in the olive oil and butter mixture, added the uncooked rice, sautéed a bit longer and then added vegetable broth, one cup at a time, as directed.

After each cup of the liquid was added, the mixture was stirred until the liquid was absorbed before adding the next cup and stirring again until absorbed. When all three cups of vegetable broth had been added and absorbed, the risotto was ready to serve. Finally, the taste sensation I was anticipating was ready to be sampled. Well, I tried it and it was good. That's it, just good, not fantastic, superb, wonderful, delectable - just good. Actually it was nothing special in my opinion and definitely not worth the exorbitant price of the rice.

I still have the remainder of the rice in the jar and will experiment with other combinations but, unless I conjure up an amazing dish that would not be the same without this type of rice, this was my first and last purchase of Arborio rice. At more than four times the cost of regular long grain rice, it simply is not worth the extra expenditure for an ordinary taste. Even on sale, it is too expensive to warrant its future purchase.