Tomorrow's culinary tweet thread starts today. Guinea fowl and porcini risotto.

There's many keys to a successful risotto. But a good cooking stock is critical to the operation. So, having had a pot-roasted guinea fowl the other night, I stripped the remaining meat off the carcass.

Stick the bones, a carrot roughly chopped, a big celery rib roughly chopped, the green bits of a few spring onions left over from something else, 4 bay leaves, 5-6 peppercorns, one clove garlic, in a pot.

Add enough water to cover the bones all the way, bring it up to a moderate simmer. Let it simmer for at least a good hour, if not more.

The Guinea Fowl, by the way, cost me £9 and is good value.

After the stock is done, and it's only done when you think its done, let it cool down a bit so you can drain it without scalding yourself.

OK, as I said before, there's 3 key components to risotto: rice, stock, and technique.

You have to have the right rice. I am actually really REALLY tired of explaining rice to whitebread American and British folk who seem to think all rice is the same.

Rice isn't all the same, FFS. Several times people have told me that their risotto sucked, and I asked what rice they used, and it was Uncle Ben's.

Uncle Ben is a travesty

For good risotto, there's specific varietals of short-grain rice you should use. My preferred is Vialone. But Carnaroli and Arborio are more widely available. If not available, just don't make risotto and go on to something else.

There are rarer Italian rice varieties basically unavailable outside of northern Italy such as Baldo and Maratelli. Kudos if you can source them.

If you don't have the right rice, don't bother making risotto. It's like saying "how do I cook this catfish recipe, I have a cod".

For more information, go back and re-read

Some rice-centric culinary traditions like China or India make a great fuss of rinsing the rice. And such is important in those traditions. BUT DO NOT RINSE YOUR RISOTTO RICE. You want that starchy dust. It's part of the whole thing

The next component is the stock. For a superlative risotto you want a real stock. Not something from a cube, a powder, or sachet. You can still make risotto with some substandard stock. It just won't be as good as mine

Earlier in this thread I made a passable stock from a guinea fowl carcass. You can do the same with a chicken carcass, a pheasant, or a turkey. All make nice stock for risotto.

If you are doing a seafood risotto, I suggest either a veggie stock or one from the heads and tails of prawns.

I reckon partridge or grouse or wood pigeon carcasses will also yield a decent stock. The Milan classic Risotto alla Milanese uses beef stock (and bone marrow), but I've never made it myself.

Proper beef stock at home is a pain. Doable. But an effort. These poultry/game stocks are easy.

And, one finally note, back on the rice subject. I have actually met very few English people who can cook rice properly. It's basically a national travesty.

Some people make the mistake of salting their stock. Stock is not broth. My risotto process will concentrate all the flavours. If you start out with a salty stock, you'll end up too salty at the end. You can always add salt. You can't take it out

The third component is technique. The technique takes time. There's competing schools of thought on how to cook risotto and resulting doctrinal/sectarian arguments. I'm going to give MY technique. Feel free to dither and differ.

Personally, I think you need a relatively big pot made of cast iron. Like a le creuset. Retains heat well. You also need a wooden spoon or spatula for stirring. But most importantly, it will take 45 mins to an hour and will take your mostly undivided attention.

Now, the various culinary websites on the internet of full of "where did I go wrong with my risotto" tales. Nearly all of them fall on a Venn diagram of dumbassery and "not following the instructions"

"I didn't have any celery, so I used a tablespoon of celery salt"
I need not dignify this one with an answer.

"I put it all in my fancy rice cooker and it was inedible" - Rice cookers are for another purpose. They are not for risotto.

"I didn't have x so I substituted Y" - you need to be smart here. Some substitutions are better than others. "I had no white wine so I put in a slug of vermouth" - Brilliant. "I had no parmigiano so I grated in some Emmental" dumbass.

"I put it all in the microwave" sigh

"I used basmati rice" sigh

"I had no stock so I used Bisto gravy" sigh

"I put it in the slow cooker for 6 hours" sigh.

I swear, I could do an entire cookbook just making fun of the dimwitted and lazy.

Having made my stock yesterday, next step is to rehydrate some dried porcini mushrooms. Break a handful of them and put them in some hot water

Just let them sit. Don’t get rid of the soaking water. It goes into the risotto

I should say that my recipe here is for 2 generous main course portions. Weigh out 185g of rice

Finely chop 1 medium onion, 1 rib celery, 1 clove garlic

Put about 750 ml of your stock in a saucepan and warm it up to a high simmer

In your cooking pot, melt several good knobs of butter over medium high heat. You want good knobs

When butter is foamy, add your onion, celery, garlic and a few grinds of white pepper

Once the veg is cooked down a bit, 5-6 mins, dump in all the rice and stir.

You want to toast the rice a bit, 3-4 mins on this same med-hi heat.

Add a few glugs of white or dry vermouth, 5-6 tablespoons

Cook until all the vermouth disappears. 3-4 mins.

Add 1 ladle of hot stock. Stir to combine. Turn heat down a bit to a moderate bubbling

Take the mushrooms out of their liquid. Chop them up, put them and their liquid into the pot

When mushroom liquid is absorbed add another ladle of stock and stir

Keep adding stock, 1 ladle a time and stir. You don’t have to stir constantly, but stir it in when you add it and stir periodically to keep from sticking

Repeat. Repeat. You can go away for 2 mins here and there to attend to other tasks

Tip. If you need to go away for longer than 2 mins, add 2 ladles