{"id":1275,"date":"2017-05-29T09:00:06","date_gmt":"2017-05-29T15:00:06","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/villasentieri.com\/?post_type=recipe&p=1275"},"modified":"2026-09-02T10:59:19","modified_gmt":"2026-09-02T17:59:19","slug":"risotto-with-asparagus","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/villasentieri.com\/index.php\/2017\/05\/29\/risotto-with-asparagus\/","title":{"rendered":"Risotto with Asparagus"},"content":{"rendered":"

May 29, 2017<\/span><\/p>\n

Risotto is not a Southern Italian dish.\u00a0 Neither is polenta, for that matter.<\/p>\n

I never had either until college when I started cooking from Marcella Hazan\u2019s The Classic Italian Cookbook<\/strong> published in 1973.\u00a0 I still use the dog-eared copy I bought in college the year it was published.<\/p>\n

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It was a magnificent introduction to Northern Italian cooking which I knew little about as a kid of 18 from a small town in Western Pennsylvania in my sophomore year of college.<\/p>\n

My knowledge of Northern Italian cooking expanded rapidly though.\u00a0 Marcella was only the beginning.\u00a0 There was a true restaurant renaissance in Philadelphia in the 1970\u2019s.\u00a0 Not only magnificent French restaurants like Le Bec Fin and La Panetiere, but wonderful Northern Italian restaurants like the Monte Carlo Living Room and a bevy of others whose names I can\u2019t recall.\u00a0 I ate at all of them\u2026often.\u00a0 I still remember one dinner at the Monte Carlo Living Room where, after being served a very simple spaghetti with garlic and oil, the waiter (they weren\u2019t called servers back then) came by with a black truffle and shaved large quantities of it onto my pasta.\u00a0 Heaven!<\/p>\n

I also learned about Northern Italian cooking from the aunts of my college advisor Eugene (Gene) d\u2019Aquili.\u00a0 Well, it was Roman cooking, actually, which is in central Italy but still pretty far north from where my mother\u2019s family hailed.<\/p>\n

Auntie Helen (Zia Elena) and Auntie Louise (Zia Luigia) (they Anglicized their names after coming to America) were born in Rome in the early years of the 20th century.\u00a0 They came to America as children.\u00a0 Of the two, Auntie Helen was the cook.\u00a0 From her I learned to make many classic Roman dishes.\u00a0 Some of Auntie Helen\u2019s dishes are slated to make it into the blog, including a Roman Chicken Cacciatore flavored with anchovies.<\/p>\n

So, by the time I got absorbed into my husband\u2019s Northern Italian family (his father is from Tuscany and his mother from Friuli) I had a good grasp of Northern Italian cooking.<\/p>\n

We have risotto often.\u00a0 Probably at least once every two weeks.\u00a0 It\u2019s usually made with a vegetable, though occasionally I\u2019ll make Risotto alla Milanese flavored with saffron and not a vegetable in sight.\u00a0 In the spring risotto usually includes asparagus or peas.\u00a0 In the summer it is likely to be zucchini.\u00a0 The fall brings butternut squash risotto and mushroom risotto.\u00a0 Mushroom risotto pretty much carries us through the winter, too, with the occasional risotto made with meat sauce.<\/p>\n

Since it\u2019s spring, I\u2019m doing risotto agli asparagi, risotto with asparagus.

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Risotto with Asparagus<\/h2>\n
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Risotto is a classic Northern Italian dish. The goal is to have rice grains that are still al dente (but not crunchy) in the middle surrounded by a creamy liquid. More often than not I find that risotto served in America is overly rich with butter, cheese, and sometimes cream. An Italian-style risotto should be creamy from the starch in the rice, augmented with a very modest amount of butter and cheese. Risotto rice is a short grain rice that cooks slowly, making it much easier to achieve an al dente texture because it takes a while to actually overcook it. The three types of rice for risotto are Arborio, Carnaroli, and Vialone Nano. Arborio is the easiest one to find though the other two are more forgiving than Arborio when it comes to overcooking. I recommend buying good quality rice imported from Italy. It really isn\u2019t priced that differently from domestic. Do not wash the rice. \r\n\r\nI don\u2019t buy shallots unless I have a specific recipe in mind. Since risotto is often something that I make with little advance planning based on the fresh vegetables that are in my refrigerator, I usually use onion and garlic in place of shallot. I honestly don\u2019t think one could reliably tell the difference so feel free to use onion and garlic as noted in the recipe if shallots aren\u2019t handy.<\/div>\n
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Prep Time <\/span>15 minutes<\/span><\/span> mins<\/span><\/span><\/div>
Cook Time <\/span>45 minutes<\/span><\/span> mins<\/span><\/span><\/div>
Total Time <\/span>1 hour<\/span><\/span> hr<\/span><\/span><\/div><\/div>\n
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Servings: <\/span>6<\/span> people<\/span><\/span><\/div><\/div><\/div>\n <\/div>\n<\/div>\n
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Ingredients
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