dr bob never had a fresh leek until his forties. dr bob never even had a can of leek
and potato soup until his forties. dr bob still feels pretty young and looks pretty good
for a middle aged grownup person. It's hard to believe how fast life seems to go by. But
thanks to a week on a small impoverished Caribbean island at a luxury hotel on a beautiful
beach with a subcompact rental car, the food team got to cruise a lot of local minimarkets
and "supermarkets", and had one dinner in town trying to escape the outrageous
prices on the beach. Of course since it was a second wedding anniversary, not a whole lot
was saved, but we did accidentally discover a wonderful vegetable pasta dish with leeks in
the lineup. So wonderful that after a decade of not having time to try any of the recipes
we tagged in Bon Appetit (well, hardly any), we
were inspired to write to "Ask Bon Appetit" to see if they might coax a real
by-the-numbers recipe out of the chef who, by the way, had mysteriously appeared from the
kitchen to ask us how we liked the food (another first for us) and then roughly explained
the recipe upon request.
We came home and promptly gave it a try, and it was good, but just not the same. So we
figured we'd have to write the chef, since there was no guarantee our magazine would help
us out on this one. [We didn't. They didn't.] Meanwhile we had half the white trunk part
of the leek left from the trial pasta event and a bunch of trim-looking asparagus both
relaxing in the fridge. Asparagus risotto came to mind, so we got out Marcella (Hazan, the book) and then dr bob had the
brilliant idea of using the leek in place of the token chopped onions in her recipe. But
was conveniently getting sick so ms ani executed the idea. She's getting to be quite a
risottatrice. Excellent!
One question remained. Riso arborio or riso integrale? Those Italians have a whole
lineup of different rices. For risotto one can use either arborio or "roma" or
"classico" or "integrale", the latter of which is a kind of brown
italian rice. dr bob hauled about 2 kilos each of both arborio and integrale back on the
last Roman expedition, influenced towards the integrale by vague health food
considerations. These contributed to the great starch bug plague of '93 which we have
still not emerged from at this writing. One evening the food team had spent hours sifting
and pawing through all this rice to eliminate hordes of these little creatures that could
not escape from the plastic bag in which the four 1 kilo boxes were sitting. (Others had
already escaped from previously imported stocks of arborio rice or DeCecco pasta to establish a colony behind the counters
in the apartment kitchen, sending out search parties on a daily basis. We had to buy a
house to escape them.)
One might wonder why we went to such lengths with our rice import business. The answer
is simple. We're cheap. [Frugal?] About 5 bucks plus for a pound here. 2 bucks for a kilo
there. Do the numbers. [Hint: $5/lb here versus $2/2.2 lb there -> 5.5 here/there
ratio.] [Later note: prices have fallen considerably in the interim due to the increasing
market for real Italian food, saving us from having to fill our bags with this heavy
product on our return trips from risottoland.] Anyway, while we were cruising the
minimarkets in Antigua, picking up our annual supply of mango and guava jams and jellies
and various and other sundries, we discovered a lonely 1 lb box of arborio sitting on the
shelf. Which we snapped up. Tilting our stocks in favor of an arborio surplus. So we went
with arborio for the asparagus-leek risotto.
So the lineup for our variation of the traditional asparagus risotto goes like this:
ingredients
- 1)
- 1 lb fresh asparagus, thin stalked
- 1 1/2 T butter
- 2 or 3 T olive oil
- 1/2 white leek stalk, finely chopped (about a cup)
- 2)
- 1 1/2 c arborio rice
- 1/2 t salt, or to taste 1 vegetable broth cube, or equivalent
- 3)
- freshly ground pepper
- 1 T butter
- 1/2 c freshly grated parmesan
instructions
- Asparagus prep: break off the ends of the stalks and potato peel the harder parts down
if there are any. Ours were tender enough without the peeling. Steam in an asparagus
steamer standing up for about 5 minutes after boiling. Cut into half inch lengths and
reserve the tips to add in at the end. Save a cup of the asparagus water to add to the
risotto.
- Meanwhile, have a teapot boiling up about 4 or 5 cups of water for the rice to be added
as needed.
- Sauté the leeks in the olive oil and butter until translucent, then add the detipped
asparagus pieces for a couple of minutes, stirring to prevent sticking. Then add the rice
and mix around till it gets well coated.
- Then add the cup of asparagus water. When absorbed, begin adding the boiling water from
the teapot a half cup or so at a time for about 20 minutes or so that the rice takes to
cook (al dente test!), together with the veggie broth cube and the salt.
- Final touch. Turn off the heat and mix in the tablespoon of butter, the asparagus tips,
and the almost half cup of parmesan, and freshly ground pepper to taste. Serve
immediately. We quite enjoyed it.
notes
- You don't half to fly to the Caribbean to move on the leek question. Just go out and buy
some. And try our version of the St John's leek and veggie pasta. Whatever, it's a winning
vegetable. [Or is it a root?]
- And try it before your golden years are here. We did and we're glad.
variation: asparagus and baby shrimp
- Many years later no leeks are on hand but some asparagus has been sitting way too long
in the fridge, so a risotto burial seems like the only solution. The usual onion replaces
the leek, and a small plastic container (1 cup size) of previously frozen baby shrimps are
snagged on the way home from work to do a combo flavor kind of thing. Rice cut down
to one cup to intensify the mix. The asparagus are a bit soft in places. bob
whacks off the
stiff ends, rinses them rubbing off the soft spots and does the asparagus pot boiling
routine separately. And chops up some left over fresh chanterelle mushrooms, just a
partial handful also aging in cold storage, which are sautéed in a little butter
separately. No open bottle of white wine there though, so bob hits the rice with a splash
of Bacardi light rum which does the job at the initial rice toss-in stage. The add-ins are
incorporated about 5 minutes from the end. A bunch of yellowing flat parsley gives up some
green parts to make a couple tablespoons of fresh chopped parsley. Plus the usual
parmigiano and black pepper finisher.
- The basic idea of asparagus and shrimp together came from the orecchiette Campbell cream
of shrimp soup asparagus combo. Ms_ani was impressed.
- You can do this with baby shrimps in a can too. With or without any kind of mushrooms.
And if you have a leek, that too.
- Oh, before you incorporate the asparagus, take the tougher ends and food process them
with a little water to add a greenish tinge to the creamy risotto end product. To spread
the flavor a bit more.
variation: lemon asparagus risotto
- 2005. Looking for a slight variation we pulled a trusted
risotto author from the shelf (Risotto
Risotti), and found this simple idea. Again just onions instead of
leeks. Then just add a few tablespoons of lemon juice and some lemon zest
(we used a left over half lemon for the zest and cheated by adding to its
limited juice output by adding some from a yellow plastic container) at the
beginning of the water addition phase. Since we are limiting simple
carbs at this point, we only use 3/4 c arborio rice with the bunch of
asparagus (about a pound?). After cooking the asparagus in the asparagus
pot, we cut off the tougher ends and stuck them in the boiling rice water
combo and then ground them up with a hand blender to add asparagus flavor to
the gooey rice mixture. We then cut up the rest in half inch pieces and
reserved them till the end of the cooking phase and then dumped them in to
heat through again and then finished it off with plentiful parmigiano and
freshly ground black pepper stirred into the pot and an extra hit on the
serving.
second anniversary surprise
ingredients/instructions
- Fettuccine, freshly prepared, tossed with:
- chopped zucchini, spinach, celery, and leek
- sautéed in vegetable oil [blanche spinach first, then chop]
- spiced with:
- garlic, oregano, and fresh dill, salt and pepper.
- Add touch of cream at the end, toss in fettuccine.
- October 19, 1993 Redcliffe Tavern, Redcliffe Quay, St John's Antigua
Dear Bon Appetit,
The Redcliffe Tavern in the heart of St John's, Antigua serves a great pasta:
fettuccine tossed with zucchini, spinach, celery, and leeks. Although the chef explained
roughly how to make it, a printed recipe would save us a lot experimentation to get it
right.
Thanks, bob and ani
[No reply.]