People disagree on this one. Some say you can, but not a single Italian cook I have ever worked with would think about doing that. You always add liquid bit by bit, stirring almost constantly, until the rice is done. This makes sense because you can control how soupy the risotto is this way, and you can adjust things like salt level on the fly. If you had dumped in a quart of beef broth, for example, you might not need that much, and it might make the risotto too salty.