At the Base of the Base

The foundation that supports the succeeding layers of flavor of a risotto is what Italian cooks call a soffritto: onion, and occasionally garlic, sautéed more often than not in butter, or alternatively in olive oil. The sautéing procedure must liberate a judicious measure of taste from the onion and, if present, the garlic. Judicious because if it is executed timidly, you will have too flimsy an underpinning of flavor, but if too insistently, the flavor you have extracted will have a sharp and intrusive presence in the finished dish.