Spring Vegetable Risotto
After days and days of sickness, I finally felt well enough to return to the land of the living. My criteria: venture more than one block away from home, hang out with friends and consume at least one beer and/or glass of wine, want to cook something more complex than pushing a few buttons the microwave.
All criteria checked. Friday night, Tracy drug me to Sun Liquor, where Eric made me a few non-alcoholic vitamin C laden juices, then insisted that a hot toddy would make me feel better. He was right. Saturday night with Jess and Lisa and Jeff at Quinn's, with a glass of pinot noir and glass of Monastrell (which was quite delightful), and an excellent tongue salad and chickpea soup topped with parsley oil and candied lemon peel and other goodness.
However, the real purpose this blog - to detail the deliciousness of Sunday night's dinner: the spring vegetable risotto. Published in the latest Cooks Illustrated, the recipe ventured from all other risotto recipes in a unique way. Rather than simply heating chicken stock and adding to the risotto, it called for simmering all vegetable and herb trimmings in the chicken broth for 20 minutes, straining and then cooking the risotto as normal. An added punch - a few teaspoons of lemon juice thrown in at the end, and topping each serving with gremolata (lemon zest + mint + parsley).
Delicious, I tell you, absolutely delicious.
A very interesting unoaked Chardonnay, a 2006 Crossings from New Zealand, went quite well with the risotto, which contained spring vegetables of the asparagus and peas and leeks variety. Many years ago, when I finally figured out that I really hated the oaky and buttery flavor of chardonnays, I heard of unoaked chardonnays, and found a few in the form of white bordeaux varietals. The deliberate labeling of "unoaked" was a pleasant surprise, refreshing and not at all like the California chardonnays that I just don't like.
All in all, a nice meal along the road to recovery.
