[riffraff]

risottare and mantecare are different things.

Risottare is cooking the pasta in little water (or other liquid) so all the starch stays in the pan/pot, adding water or sauce as needed. This is the part you do with broth when cooking rice for risotto.

Mantecare is when you mix the pre-cooked pasta with condiment in a pan, possibly adding some pasta water. This is the part you do with butter and parmigiano when making risotto ("mantecare" comes from "manteca", spanish for cream/butter).

You can do one, none, or both for a given dish, and get different outcomes :)

See e.g. (in italian) https://www.dissapore.com/cucina/come-risottare-la-pasta/

[mastazi]

OK I get what you mean, I've seen risottare before used as a synonym to mantecare (I think it was some Italia Squisita video) but it makes sense that it's actually what you describe i.e. cooking pasta like a risotto, hence risottare. Thanks for the link