Asparagus risotto with mushrooms and broad beans
Ingredients
- 300 g risotto rice arborio, carnaroli
- 500 g green asparagus
- 2 handfuls of shelled broad beans
- Approx. 6 mushrooms button, oyster, shiitake mushrooms... as you prefer
- 2 medium shallots
- 1 clove of garlic
- 100 to 125 g thick sour cream or mascarpone
- 200 ml good dry white wine
- 1,5 l vegetable broth
- olive oil
- salt
- pepper
- nutmeg
- parmigiano cheese
- Few basil leaves optional
- peeled crushed pistachios optional
Instructions
- This recipe has many steps that you can do in parallel, I advise you to read the recipe thoroughly before you start.
- Wash and peel the asparagus if you wish.
- Cut them into small pieces, and put the heads aside.
- Steam the asparagus for 15 minutes. After 10 minutes, add the heads. 5 minutes later, check the cooking: if the tip of your knife sinks easily, the asparagus is cooked! Otherwise leave a few more minutes, and set aside.
- While the asparagus is cooking, finely chop the shallots and the garlic clove, and fry in a little olive oil in a frying pan.
- Prepare the vegetable broth in the meantime: boil some water and add some stock cubes (I also add 2 bay leaves).
- Then add the rice to the fried garlic and shallots, stir, and fry for a few minutes until translucent, over medium heat.
- Deglaze the rice with the white wine, mixing well with a wooden spatula.
- Once the wine has been absorbed, add the broth with a ladle and leave to cook over a low heat.
- As soon as the broth is absorbed, add a new ladle of broth and so on. Stir regularly and cook the rice like this for about twelve minutes.
- While the rice is cooking with the broth, mix the asparagus pieces (without the heads!), adding a tablespoon of water or cream. Set the asparagus cream aside.
- Once the rice has been cooked for 10/12 minutes in the broth, add the asparagus cream and some sour cream or mascarpone and mix well.
- Chop the mushrooms and add them to the risotto with the asparagus heads.
- Season with salt, pepper, a little nutmeg and parmesan. Leave to cook on a very low heat for ten more minutes. Of course, taste to see if the cooking is suitable (if you like the risotto more or less al dente) and adjust if necessary.
- If the broad beans are small, you can add them raw to the risotto at the end of cooking. Otherwise steam them for 5 minutes and add them to the risotto.
- In summary: 3/4mn to brown the rice with the shallots and garlic + 12/13 minutes cooking time of the rice in the stock, + 10 minutes with the cream of asparagus and mushrooms. Add the broad beans at the end.
- Leave to rest for a few minutes and then serve in soup plates. Prepare a few shavings of parmesan and wash a few basil leaves to put on the risotto. You can also sprinkle some crushed peeled pistachios.
Notes
You can replace the fresh cream by stracciatella, an Italian cheese made with buffalo milk and cream.
For a vegan option, you can replace the sour cream with oat cream and the parmesan with vegan cheese. You can also change the vegetables by replacing the beans with peas for example, or add a little lemon zest for a more tangy version.
In short, let your imagination go wild!