A new recipe for a vegan spring risotto that combines some old French cooking ideas with green, fresh spring flavours of mint, coriander, broad beans, peas and lemon with the depth of mushrooms prepared in two different ways. Bring on the darling buds!
Revolutionary vigour
I created this recipe for a vegan spring risotto very recently. Both its rather unexpected combination of ingredients and two-part cooking method—not at all normative for risotto—came about when pondering some interesting historical side notes I chanced upon while researching something altogether different. However, it has rapidly become my current favourite risotto.
It's an easy dish to cook, certainly. But, it's also definitely "slow cooking" and takes time. And it's also one of those dishes that will demand almost constant attention for the 25 to 30 minutes it takes to cook the risotto.
Not that long ago, I was in the British Library, researching events in Northern Italy in the last years of the 18th century. It was at this time that a 27-year-old Napoleon Bonaparte, long before his personal imperial aspirations were actualised, was sent by the will of the French people's revolution to lead a campaign against a faded Venetian Republic.
In among all the details of military campaigns and political chicanery between France and Austria—poor old Venice, despite being neutral, didn't stand a chance caught between those two—I came across quite a lot of incidental details about cooking.
For one thing, Napoleon, despite being a loyal son of the Revolution, didn't exactly rough it where army chow was concerned. Even before his ascent to imperial highness, it seems that when he went on campaign, he insisted on taking a number of chefs with him...just in case one of them was hit by a stray cannonball or succumbed to some grim disease. God forbid he should have to eat the same food as his men. Furthermore, he expected his chefs to serve up quality dining at all times, under any conditions. Yet, he made no allowances for any delay his lightning campaigns.
"...the good women of Desenzano del Garda, filled with hatred for the pillaging French, decided to exact what small revenge they could."
According to the journals of a certain Captaine de Boisgelin who served on the campaign—and by all accounts also liked his food—the youngest of this band of chefs came up with an interesting innovation for good cuisine while on campaign. De Boisgelin refers to is as a "liaison", a term still used in French cooking, though now for something entirely different.
Whenever he got the chance, the chef would gather small mushrooms and sauté these together with copious amounts of chopped celery in olive oil. This in itself was curious to De Boisgelin, that the chef had "gone native" and actually preferred to use Italian olive oil even when butter, so beloved of the French, was available. To this, he would add generous amounts of sweet white wine and cook it down. The cooked result—a kind of earthy, boozy mirepoix—would keep for days without refrigeration and be whipped out and used in the base of a dish when "the Little Corporal" expected something tasty on the table when the chefs didn't have time to create a fresh stock.
The second culinary anecdote that I came across concerned a small act of vengeance that had unexpected results. When the French entered the town of Desenzano del Garda, the haughty occupying French officers demanded to be wined and dined.
Lake Garda, with it's microclimate, is renowned for its lemons. More specifically, they are supposed to be the most bitter lemons in all Italy, something that is a particularly desirable quality for producing the best limoncello. And, certainly, I can testify to the veracity of these claims. I remember that when my partner Luc and I visited the somewhat obviously named town of Limone sul Garda, the epicentre of all things bitter lemon, some years ago, we were glugging down mineral water the whole time it took to sail back to Malcesine on the other side of the lake in attempt to relieve the lingering bitterness. Clearly we should have rounded off our outing with trying the limoncello after biting into one of the famously bitter lemons rather than the other way round.
Meanwhile, back in 1796, the good women of Desenzano del Garda, filled with hatred for the pillaging French, decided to exact what small revenge they could. They added the infamously bitter lemon juice to a prized dish of sautéd fresh mushrooms served to the officers, combining two flavours they considered an anathema. The only problem was that the French loved it. They even took the "recipe" back to Paris with them where, years later it remained a regimental favourite in the officers' mess and even made it onto the menu in eateries celebrating the exotic culinary prizes brought back to La Patrie by the French army.
So, somewhere in the more lyrical caverns of my mind, I determined to come up with a recipe that combined these historical footnotes that had inspired me with their poetry worthy of any provincial Italian opera house. Some thinking, a little experimentation and testing, and, here it is. No, it's not authentic at all, but it is mighty fine.
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Petty officers
On the practical side, there are a few things worth noting. Firstly, as mentioned already, you should prepare the celery and mushroom "liaison" at least 48 hours before starting your risotto. I made the one I'm using here 72 hours before and it produced a sublime result. In terms of the wine, it doesn't have to be marsala. I've also made it with a Moscatel de Valencia and that worked very well too. I'm sure it will work with any number of strong sweet white wines.
Apart from pepper, I learned in developing this recipe that you want to keep all dried herbs far away from this dish. If you don't have fresh bay leaves, it's better to leave them out altogether rather than use dried.
Don't prepare all of the mushrooms at once. You will cook half of them days before you cook the risotto. If the other half are also chopped, they'll get that horrible dryness suffered by pre-sliced "lazy" mushrooms sold in supermarkets.
As usual, I'm using my beloved carnaroli rice for the risotto, but I would say that this really is a case in which the more commonly available arborio rice will work just as well because the end result is more "juicy" than "creamy".
You can cook this risotto in a deep frying pan as many do in Italy rather than a pot, but I advise a pot for this one. As the risotto cooks, it allows you to pull ingredients up to the cooler surface, which is very useful to prevent any of the fresh herbs or green veggies overcooking.
You don't use masses of any of the green herbs in the risotto, merely a small clutch of each. What is very important, though, is that you pluck the leaves from the stems—which don't go into the pot—and not chop them. Think I'm being pedantic? Trust me, take a little extra time to be a leaf plucker and you'll understand I'm not.
For my salad, I'm opting only for young leaves: red chard, spinach and the remainder of the pea shoots, garnished with the zest from the lemons and simply dressed with a dab of balsamico and extra virgin olive oil. That's because I think it works really well to pair the cooked ingredients with the raw versions of some of them. But, of course you could go for variety and make other choices.
In the quantities below, this recipe serves 2 to 3 diners as a main course and easily 5 to 6 if you're serving it as primi piatti. And, I shall most certainly being doing that this spring. Of course, the rice is filling, but the subtle, fresh flavours make it ideal as a first course.
This is not a low fat dish specifically, but it certainly contains less fat than most risottos since it involves no dairy or animal ingredients.
Shopping list
for the vegan spring risotto
1 cup of carnaroli rice (or any other good risotto rice, more options here)
Approx. 400g of button mushrooms (halved or cut into large pieces)
3 cloves of garlic, roughly sliced, not crushed or grated
2 medium brown onions, cubed (or equivalent quantity)
1 vegetable stock cube or jelly, diluted in 300ml boiling water (or fresh)
1 cup green peas, fresh or frozen, but fully defrosted
1 cup broad beans, fresh or frozen, but fully defrosted
3 or 4 sticks of young celery (and the leaves from the centre of the bunch)
A small clutch of fresh mint
A small clutch of fresh coriander
A small clutch of fresh pea shoots
2 or 3 fresh bay leaves
4 or 5 whole black peppercorns
The juice and zest of 2 fresh lemons
Salt and black pepper to taste
4 tbspns extra virgin olive oil
1 large glass of dry white wine (250ml)
300ml sweet white wine (such as marsala)
Salt and black pepper to taste
for the salad
A selection of baby green leaves of choice
Lemon zest (from the lemons listed above)
Balsamico and extra virgin olive oil (optional)
Cooking Method
the celery and mushroom "liaison"
Do this at least 48 hours before starting your risotto. Chop the celery into fairly thick slices and put the leaves aside for use in the risotto. Heat about one third of the olive oil in a pan on a medium heat. When it is warm, not necessarily fully hot, add the celery. Sauté, stirring regularly. Once the celery has absorbed most of the oil, though it should still be firm, add approx. 50ml of the sweet white wine. If it seems slow to cook off, increase the heat
Keep topping up with small amounts of wine until the celery shows signs of softening. Add approx. 200g of your mushrooms to the pan and stir. Once coated with juices, add a little salt and more of the wine. Continue with the process of gently stirring and replenishing the wine until it has all cooked off
Ideally, you want to time it so that the mushrooms and celery are optimally cooked and all the wine has been cooked in at the same time. If you burn through the wine too quickly, add tiny amounts of water. Only when the mushrooms are optimally cooked—but not overcooked—remove from the heat and allow to fully cool
Decant with any juices to a suitable container. Season with black pepper, but do not stir in. Cover and store in the fridge for at least 48 hours. Remove and allow to return to room temperature at least an hour before starting the risotto
the vegan spring risotto
Prepare you fresh herbs first—you wont get time once the cooking starts. Pluck the whole leaves from the washed coriander, fresh mint and pea shoots and gently mix up in a small bowl and place to one side
Heat the remaining olive oil on a medium heat in a large pot. Add your roughly sliced garlic and the black peppercorns. Sizzle the garlic until the edges of the slices begin to turn golden. Add the chopped onions and stir thoroughly, coating in the oil. Add the juice of one of the lemons and season with a little pepper. Sauté until softened but not yet brown, adding half of the dry white wine and allowing it to cook off
Add the additional 200g of mushrooms and stir in, sautéing together with the onions, seasoning sparingly with a little salt. When the onions soften fully and the pot has cooked fairly dry, even if the mushrooms are not yet cooked, push the contents of the pot to the edges
Increase the heat and add the rice. Allow it to toast, mixing it with the ingredients to ensure all grains are coated, stirring constantly to prevent sticking. The longer you can hold out, ensuring all the rice is toasted, the better the end results
When you can no longer prevent sticking, pour in the liquid vegetable stock, reducing to a medium heat, and stirring vigorously. Make sure to loosen any grains that may have stuck to the bottom of the pot. Keep stirring as the liquid comes to a simmer. And keep stirring
After about 10 to 12mins—when the rice should be roughly half-done—add the celery and mushroom "liaison" and the fresh bay and celery leaves to the top of the pot. Allow them to settle for half a minute of so, then fold in. You will almost certainly need to add a little additional boiling water at this point to ensure the increased volume is suitably hydrated. Keep stirring, preventing any sticking
After about 5min—the rice is likely to have incrementally swollen by now—add half of the fresh green herbs to the top of the pot and allow to rest for about 30 seconds. Then gently stir in and add the juice of the second lemon. Keep stirring...
After about 5mins, add the broad beans and fold in, stirring constantly. Try to not add additional water beyond this stage, instead cooking the liquid down. But, it's a balancing act. Keep tasting individual grains of rice. This should tell you whether you are going to need a little more water or soldier on through relying only on stirring with a wooden spatula to prevent sticking before the rice is optimally cooked
When the rice is almost cooked—give or take no more that 3 or 4mins from optimally done—add the peas and fold in. Add a little more salt and pepper
Add soon as the level of "liquor" is optimal and the rice is done, remove from the heat. Add the remainder of fresh herbs and gently fold into the risotto. Cover and allow to rest for at least 5mins
Plate, garnish with mint leaves, and take to table, serving with the salad
for the salad
Mix the green leaves in salad bowls and garnish with the lemon zest
Dress with a little balsamico and extra virgin olive oil, if desired
Alternatives
This is intrinsically a vegan dish. Frankly, I have no great interest in trying to to make it anything else. It's not for any ideological reason. Rather it's a matter of taste in a very literal sense. The only thing I have even tried so far—adding parmesan—confirms what I instinctively already knew; that it would be all too easy to kill the subtle and fresh flavours with heavier animal ingredients.
That said, I could theoretically see how it could work as a pescatarian dish with roughly cubed slices of smoked salmon—the type that goes on sandwiches, not the proper thick hot smoked form—or gravad lax mixed in with the fresh herbs after the risotto has been removed from the heat at the end of the cooking. And I also have an inkling that flaked Arbroath smokies could work very well, their very delicate flavours mirroring how this dish works. They're at the top of my "to try" list.
And, if I were forced to do a version for carnivores, I'd take it in a similar direction with cubes of smoked chicken breast also added after the cooking process itself.
Pairings
While there are plenty of wines that would work famously, so far I've coincidently been teetotal on the occasions I've cooked it. By far my favourite beverage with it—which I made while I was creating the recipe; a byproduct of thinking about the wonders of lemons—is something I was taught by a woman in Seville. Basically, you take the skins and pith of lemons you've just squeezed for use in cooking and cut them into chunks. You put these in a sealable bottle, fill it with water and chill in the fridge.
Big deal: we've all had fruit-infused water. Aha! But here, once you've drained the bottle, you don't discard the lemon remnants. Instead, you keep refilling and re-chilling. And, after about three days, you chill the water with these decidedly fermenting lemon "guts" and chill overnight. It's spectacular. It has this subtle yellow tint, a bit like a really pale wine. It only has a hint of lemon and another odd, very subtle perfumed flavour too. No idea what it's called, but I'm currently crazy for it.
I'm not gonna go down the wine route fully until I've tested out a few hypotheses. But, I would love to try it with some of the wines I can remember from Cinque Terre, certain Albariños, and one particular Portuguese number I'll have to look up. It's also one of the dishes with which I could imagine enjoying a good Pinot Grigio, not usually something I would ordinarily say out loud.
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