When making risotto, why fry the rice?

Question

When making risotto one of the first steps is to saute the rice in some oil for a few minutes (or until the rice is translucent).

What is happening when the rice is fried? What effect does this have, and what would happen if this step was omitted?

Answer

As I understand it, it's down to the flavour you get from frying the rice. However, it does also break down some of the starch which reduces the thickening it can do when the risotto cooks, which might cause a problem. I can attest to the flavour, but I've not done experiments about thickening.

Serious Eats had a good article on the topic though, in which such experiments were described. The solution in that was to wash the rice in the stock, then fry the rice, then add the stock containing all that undamaged free rice starch during cooking, thus giving you toasty flavour and creamy risotto with no questions asked. I haven't tried that, but it seems like a fairly sound idea to me.

http://www.seriouseats.com/2011/10/the-food-lab-the-science-of-risotto.html

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