First cut a pad of butter and get it melting in a nice pot.

While the butter is melting, get you shallot nice and finely diced.

With the pan on nice low heat, get the shallots sweating (they should get nice and translucent, not brown).

Once your shallots are good and translucent, add the arborio rice (I probably used about... 3/4 of a cup or so, I don't really measure). You want to "brown up" the rice (I don't really get it brown, I just mix it up with the butter and let it cook a little). (Also make sure you don't wash the rice first)

Heat the broth up.

Once the rice is "browned up," add about a cup of broth, and start stirring. Stirring is the most important part of this whole process. You want to liberate the surface starches of the rice, to create a nice creamy sauce for it. You want to vigorously stir it when you add broth.

When the rice has absorbed most of the broth, it's time to add some more. I add about one ladle each time, which is about half a cup I guess. It looks a bit like this:

Here's my main dish (butterflied barbecued chicken breast), mostly cooked, and getting slathered in barbecue sauce to be slapped back on the nice hot barbecue grill to caramelize the sauce.

Here's the rice almost done: Here's the point where you want to throw in the parmesan cheese. I like it a bit cheesy so I added about half a cup I guess. You also want to taste it and add some pepper and salt if needed.

Here's the rice good and done: Mmm, look at that delicious creamy sauce, that's what plenty of good stirring gets you. It almost looks like rice pudding doesn't it?

And here's the delicious chicken plated up with the delicious risotto, ready for me to devour. What about other broths? Beef, fish, crab, lobster, whatever type of broth you want to use will create a delicious risotto. Just use whatever you think will go best with the main dish you're cooking. Any other additions you could add? You could add some frozen peas when the risotto is almost done, some people love it.

Most importantly, before you leave this site, be sure to check out these vegetable dish recipes