Asparagus Risotto

Anyone else love this elegant veg prepared like this ? Any variations in the prep ? I love the elemental dish -shallot/butter/carnaroli/chicken stock/parm and have not varied on the perfection of these flavors.

Christina, what's carnoroli? I'm probably the only one in this forum who isn't familiar with it....

It's a particularly good risotto rice. And it's getting easier to find. For me, the texture is finer than arborio with a very nice firmness in the center.

Christina, I adore basic asparagus risotto, although I use a vegetable stock. You don't want to clutter up the dish with all sorts of extras- your simple list is all that's needed.

[Robin Garr]

Anyone else love this elegant veg prepared like this ? Any variations in the prep ? I love the elemental dish -shallot/butter/carnaroli/chicken stock/parm and have not varied on the perfection of these flavors.

I agree about 90 percent, Christina, although - not from Stuart's obligate vegetarianism but by choice based on trying it both ways - I usually skip the chicken stock to keep the asparagus flavor pure.

My trick is to trim the asparagus, cut off and reserve the tips, cut the stalks into 1-inch lengths and blanch them for a couple of minutes in simmering, lightly salted water (maybe with a clove of garlic and some peppercorns thrown in) before starting the risotto. Lift out the vegetables, "shock" them in cold water, and reserve the asparagus-scented water - stretched with plain water if necessary - as my risotto liquid.

Then I add the asparagus in stages, using about half the blanched stems from the start, add the other half when there's about 5 minutes to go, and stir in the tips at the end, just enough for the heat of the rice to heat them through.

I've made this dish about five times during local fresh asparagus season, with relatively few variations, although a couple of times I added sauteed fresh white or brown mushrooms with delicious effect.

Yes, if you blanch first you must use that liquid to cook the rice but I have done away with the blanch step entirely adding the asparagus in stages- bottom to top to get a variety of textures and colors.
I agree though that the chicken stock can detract from the clean flavor of the asparagus.

Speaking of rice....I have been cooking with the aromatics [ Jasmine and Basmati ] exclusively except for risotto. My husband bought some ordinary long grain white rice recently because we had run out of the others. My son refused to eat it saying "there's something wrong with the rice". He was right - won't use it again except for weighting pie crust.

I recently made one which involved saffran and crescenza. Lovely! Basically is like the traditional (Vialone Nano .... but difficult to find), but it add saffron with the asparagus stock and crescenza cheese at the end.