The Omnivorous Fish

Let’s put it all together. In yesterday’s entry I put “diced peas.” Although dicing the peas won’t ruin this, necessarily, I don’t recommend it.

Risotto with Ham and Peas
Serves 2-3, increases exponentially without a problem

3 tablespoons butter
2 teaspoons peanut oil
1 small onion, chopped
1 cup short-grain rice, arborio or carnaroli are traditional

1-1/2 cups dry white wine
3 cups (or more) stock, water or other flavorful liquid (dried mushroom soaking liquid, cheese rinds (not wax ones) simmered in water for a half hour, half-strength bouillon from Knorr brand cubes, water from cooking vegetables, almost anything)

3/4 cup diced ham
3/4 cup peas, thawed if frozen (this happens readily if a ladle of hot stock is poured over them at the beginning of the process. The stock can be dumped back into the pot later.)
1/2 cup grated pecorino romano cheese

In a saucepan, add half the wine to the stock and bring to a boil. Cook for one minute. Lower heat and keep mixture very hot but just balrely under the simmer. (This is to get rid of unwanted alcohol in the rice.) Keep this pan adjacent to your risotto pan, you will be ladling from one pot to another almost continuously.

Melt the butter and oil over medium heat in a heavy, nonreactive pot, like copper lined with tin or stainless steel or enameled cast iron. Aluminum may darken the risotto. Add the onion and sweat, stirring frequently. Sweating means to cook without browning, so keep your eye on it, you want to cook the onions until they are just softened. Add the rice and stir well. When the liquid from the onions has evaporated, the rice will begin to brown, stir frequently and listen for the rice to begin to whistle. No, I’m not kidding. When the natural moisture in the endosperm of the rice breaks out it will make a little whistling noise. This means the rice grains are getting in the mood.

After the rice has been whistling for a minute or so, add the remaining 3/4 cup wine all at once. When wine is mostly cooked, add one cup of stock and adjust heat so that the mixture bubbles excitedly but not vigorously while you stir it. From this point on, the risotto must be stirred regularly. Stir, and stir with a purpose, scraping the bottom and corners to avoid the risotto scorching. When there is just barely enough stock in the pan to keep all the rice submerged, add another half cup of stock and continue stirring, adding stock every few minutes as needed.

In about twelve minutes, start tasting a grain or two of rice to determine its consistency. Much like pasta, the rice should be neither crunchy nor mushy, and that last little white pearl of starch should remain inside the rice. This is not fluffy white rice with a stir fry, don’t expect it to be. This will take from 15-20 minutes, depending on heat, rice and humidity. When the rice is almost there, add ham and peas to heat through. When you believe it to be thrirty seconds from being done, add the cheese and stir thoroughly. Add stock to adjust the consistency to your liking and serve immediately. It’s not as urgent as it is with pasta, but don’t wait around. Get everybody sitting down before you add the cheese.

What to drink, what to drink. Well, I made this with Devonian White from Anthony Road Winery in New York, but I drank Cotes du Rhone with it, since we have a lot of it lying around right now. Crisp whites would be good, like sauvignon blanc from California or the Loire Valley, or you could go Italian with a light tocai friulano or even a nice falanghina, especially the recent release from Feudi di San Gregorio. I could see this with a number of reds, especially a chilled Sancerre or Bourgeil or a lightweight pinot noir from California, like the bargain basement Ramsay Lot #16 Pinot from the Carneros Valley.

Riesling could fit in, too, but that’s a whole other can of worms.

Listening: Green Day. Wow. The iTunes is on random.

You have been spared a long and boring post about frozen peas and the Lusitania. Why? I accidentally closed the window I was writing it in, and due to evolving laziness, I rarely use a word processor for posts anymore.

So let’s cut to the non-sandwich leftover chase. Derrick from Obsession with Food posted a risotto primer on SFist recently. When I came across it yesterday, I got the hankering. Of course, I get the hankering for italiannate carbs every 24 hours or so, but today it was risotto. Risotto, like pasta, only more so, is one of those dishes where you look in the refrigerator and find out what’s for dinner. For me, it’s tied for first place with frittata for effective use of leftover vegetables and the hands down winner for best use of a single leftover pork chop, sausage link or tidbit of seafood.

Now comes the challenge: What to do with all these leftovers before they go bad? I have half a pound of maytag blue cheese leftover; maybe some gnocchi are in my future. Ham sandwhiches for the rest of the year, certainly, and there’s enough beer left in there to keep a frat house busy for an hour. I feel some cheddar quesadillas coming on, for sure.

And cookies? Forget it.

One thing still blows me away: We ran out of gravy. No, not ham gravy, tomato gravy. What most of the world calls tomato sauce, in Philadelphia (and New Orleans) we call gravy. I make a lot of different tomato sauces, some traditional, some not, but they’re tomato sauce. But when I make the gravy like Mamma makes, I’m makin’ gravy.