Asparagus Risotto

Spring WAS HERE! It left yesterday when it snowed all day, but before that it was so sunny and warm and perfect for about two and a half weeks and we've been outside as much as possible. Two weeks ago I went down to Venice for the day and the vegetable market by the Rialto Bridge was filled with....asparagus! Finally! Here, they are a true sign of spring because we can't buy them until March.

So, this month's risotto is made with spring asparagus:

I made a little extra this time because I had lots of asparagus and I was thinking that leftovers would be good, but the risotto ended up being so good that we ate it all at dinner! Here's what you do...

As usual, simmer either chicken or vegetable stock, about four cups. Dice half an onion and a shallot and put them in a frying pan with about 1 tablespoon of olive oil. Once they are soft, add one cup of Arborio rice and stir to coat.

Meanwhile, break the ends off the asparagus, drizzle them with olive oil, a little salt and pepper and a few chili flakes, and roast them in a 400 degree oven for about 20 minutes, or until they are soft (I actually like them kind of burnt and crispy too).

Back to the rice - add a ladle of stock to the rice mixture and stir. Once the rice has absorbed the stock, add another ladle, and repeat this process until the rice is tender but still has its chewy bite... you'll just know when it's right.

When the asparagus are done, remove them from the oven and chop them coarsely. Add them to the rice along with a half a cup of freshly grated Parmesan. Stir together and serve immediately. Yum.

Shrimp and Zucchini Risotto

For February's risotto, I'm going off-book. Don't get me wrong, I love my risotto cookbook, the one I've been using to make all the other risotto recipes. But in every cookbook there are a few recipes you love, a few that don't look so good, and a few that intimidate you. And in my risotto cookbook, we're starting to get into the rabbit-duck-fried liver territory.

This month I decided to make a Venetian specialty. Ryan and I had this in November, on our last trip to Venice and love, love, loved it. Here's what you do:

First, pour yourself a glass of wine because you have to take the heads off the shrimp. Or maybe you  don't, but I do because that's how they come here. So after you've de-headed, de-veined, de-everything'd the shrimp so that they're no longer the 2 kilo that you paid for, but more like 0.5 kilo, set that aside and wash your hands. I despise cooking with shrimp because I always find their flippers and feelers on the kitchen floor for at least three days afterwards. But the end result is worth it!!

Then simmer 4 cups of chicken or vegetable stock on the stove. Chop up an onion and add that to a saute pan with about 1 tablespoon of olive oil (do people really measure how much olive oil they put at the bottom of the pan?). I added two diced cloves of garlic too, and let that cook on medium heat for about 4 minutes, until the onion was soft.

Then pour in your Arborio rice (about 3/4 of a cup for two people) and stir to coat or, as risotto experts say, "toast." Add a little white wine to the pan, maybe about 1/4 cup and stir together. **This step is completely unnecessary. I only do it because I've had an open bottle of white wine in the fridge for two months and the only time it gets used is when I make risotto. But I'm sure it's still good.** Wait until the wine has been absorbed and then start adding the warm broth ladle by ladle, stirring and letting the rice absorb the broth in between each ladle.

Meanwhile, chop up two zucchinis and put them in a separate saute pan with a little more olive oil. Cook the zucchini until soft and then add the shrimp. I used shrimp that was already cooked (with their heads on, apparently) and just needed to be heated, but if you're using raw shrimp cook it until it turns pink.

When the rice has absorbed all the broth that it needs (it should be easy to chew but have a firm bite to it) add the zucchini and shrimp mixture into the big pan with the rice, and stir (again!) until everything is combined. Add salt and pepper to taste (and maybe some chili flakes, if you like) and serve HOT.

Italians say you should NEVER serve Parmesan with seafood, so this is bad, but we added a little freshly grated Parmesan on top and let me tell you - it didn't ruin it at all.

January Risotto

This month it's snowed a LOT which is good for two things: skiing and piping hot meals. For January's risotto, I flipped through my cookbook and picked the the one that looked the warmest and coziest: chicken and mushroom risotto.

As I've cooked more and more risottos, I've started to deviate away from the original recipes a bit, substituting a few ingredients for ones that I can find more easily in our region, cutting down on the butter (!!), and changing up portion sizes - but two things always stay the same: the onion and the celery! Here's what I did:

Simmer 4 cups of chicken broth on the stove while you chop up one onion, one rib of celery, a few mushrooms (the original recipe called for portobello which would be delicious but we don't have those right now, so I used what I had, which was white button mushrooms), and two or so cloves of garlic.

Melt 1 or 2 tablespoons of butter in a large sauce pan over medium heat and add the onion, garlic and celery, and cook a while until soft - about 5 minutes.  Meanwhile in a smaller pan, cook the chopped mushrooms for a few minutes in 1 tablespoon of olive oil. I like my mushrooms to be a bit firmer and not soggy, so I only cook them for 3 or so minutes. Once they're cooked how you like them, remove them from the pan and set aside. Add 2 skinless, boneless chicken breasts to the same pan and cook through. When the chicken is done cooking, remove it from the heat and let it cool. Once it's cooled, shred it.

Back to your vegetable mixture - add the Arborio rice once the celery and onions are soft. These days I'm doing 3/4 of a cup for two people, for two main course servings. Stir the rice around so it gets coated in the butter and add 1 cup of white wine. Once the wine is absorbed, you can start adding the broth, one ladle at a time, and stirring in between each addition.

When the rice has taken all the broth that it wants, add in the shredded chicken, mushrooms, salt and pepper to taste, a bit of tarragon, and about 1/2 cup of Parmesan cheese.

 Serve immediately and warm up from the inside out!

December Risotto

This month, Ryan got to pick what risotto we were going to make, and he nailed it! His choice - risotto with ham and leeks - was warming, comforting and delicious....perfect for December.

 

First, chop up some leeks. I chopped one (white part only) into rounds and another one into strips for frying.

Then, heat up some oil to fry the leek strips. When it's really hot, drop the strips in and let them bubble away until they are golden brown. Take them out and set them aside on a paper towel-lined plate...you don't need them until the risotto is done.

Meanwhile, warm up four cups of chicken or vegetable broth. Then heat 2 tablespoons of olive oil in a large sauce pan. Add the round-cut leeks and saute until soft. Pour in about half a cup of Arborio rice (I always use half a cup for two people - and always four cups of broth for this amount) and stir to coat the rice with the olive oil. Add a ladle of warm broth and stir, repeating this process until the rice is tender, but still has a chewy bite to it.

Stir in the ham pieces - I used pre-chopped pancetta but the recipe actually called for slices of deli ham cut up - and add a tablespoon of Dijon mustard and a quarter cup of Parmesan cheese. Mix it all together and then plate it, adding the fried leeks to the top.

This was our favorite risotto so far, so maybe Ryan gets to pick again next month too!

PS - Here are past risottos from September, October and November....

November Risotto

This month our risotto is: pumpkin and pea! I mentioned last month that butternut squash and pumpkins are all over the place right now, and they still are, so this seemed appropriate. Here's what you do:

Start with a pumpkin. Dice it into small pieces - for two people, I did about a cup.

Begin to warm up chicken broth in a separate pot - I usually heat up about 4 cups. In a large pan, melt a tablespoon of butter and saute two tablespoons of pumpkin seeds with salt, pepper, and chili flakes. I did NOT use the seeds from the actual pumpkin, but I suppose you could. In any case, be careful! They cook quickly. Mine were a little.....crispy. And the kitchen got a little smoky.

 Drama! Anyway, then remove the smoking pumpkin seeds from the pan and melt another tablespoon of butter. Saute half an onion until soft and then add your diced pumpkin. Saute that for about 15 minutes (or until it's soft enough to mash up) and then take your potato-masher and go at it until it's a pumpkin paste.

Add half a cup (for two people this is how much I use) of Arborio rice to the pumpkin mixture and stir to coat. Then you can start to add your chicken broth, one ladle at a time. Let it absorb into the rice before you add more. And stir, stir, stir!

About halfway through the broth process, I added half a cup of frozen peas which cooked as the rice plumped up.

When the rice is tender - and still gooey - it's done, and you can mix in a little Parmesan if you want, and add salt and pepper to taste. Sprinkle your burnt pumpkin seeds on top, and you're good to go!

October Risotto

This month's risotto is: butternut squash with sage and chili! It was an easy choice this time....butternut squash is EVERYWHERE right now, and also, I had sage leaves that came in an herb package that I bought and had no idea what to do with, so....this happened:

Like my September risotto, the recipe comes from this book but I changed it a little bit this time - the original called for a whole stick of butter, which seemed a little excessive.

Here is my version (which served three):

1 tbsp butter
1small yellow onion
2 tbsp chopped sage
2 tsp dried chili flakes - more or less depending on how spicy you want it
1 cup finely diced butternut squash
1 cup Arborio rice
4 cups vegetable broth
1/4 cup Parmesan, plus more for serving

Heat up broth and leave it to simmer on the stove (oh, the luxuries of having four burners). Melt butter in a large saucepan over medium heat and add the onion. Let the onion cook and soften for about 10 minutes. Add in the chopped sage and chili flakes and cook for 1 minute. Add butternut squash and let soften a bit, about 5 more minutes. Stir in the rice and let it get coated with butter - "toast" it for about 1 minute. Add a ladle full of broth to the rice mixture and stir. I usually turn the heat down to low at this point because our burners get very hot and you want to the broth to be simmering with the rice, not furiously boiling. When the rice has absorbed the broth, add another ladle of broth, and repeat this process until all the broth is gone OR until the rice is full, tender, and has lost its hard bite. Stir in the Parmesan and serve immediately.

Risotto of the Month

When we were on our honeymoon in Santa Barbara, we decided to go on a wine tasting tour one day. We had done a few wine tastings last year in Bolzano, but they were in German, so we were excited to be able to understand what we were learning.

Here's California versus Italy, just for fun:

Santa Barbara

Bolzano

Anyway, at one of the wineries, we stumbled across a cookbook that had only risotto recipes, which we decided to buy – especially in case we didn’t have an oven this year…but we do!

I make risotto quite a bit here, but I tend to stick to the old favorites: lemon risotto, risotto with mushrooms and peas, roasted cauliflower risotto….those are on pretty heavy rotation from September to April. When I started looking through our new cookbook, I announced to Ryan that I was going to try every single recipe in the book this year, to which he replied, “Why don’t you just do one a month?”

And so the Risotto of the Month was created. I got September done just in time, too - I decided to do Risotto with Zucchini Blossoms last night because:

a) I've never cooked with zucchini blossoms before and the whole point of doing this is to try something new

b) They are still available even though they aren't really in season anymore....goodbye summer

I can't find the recipe online because it's only in the book, but if anyone wants it, I would be happy to share....it was delicious, although at this point, I would recommend waiting until next summer to make it, when the zucchini blossoms are in full bloom.

And here are my two happy sous chefs: