One day in mid May we had a bush fire very near our house, here in the hills of Itri, Italy. We were coming home from Rome and as we neared our town of Itri we got a call from a friend that lives nearby, he said “Are you guys ok? There is a lot of smoke coming from your hill.”
Jeff and I looked at each other nervously as we continued driving toward our house. Certainly there wasn’t a problem or we would have heard from our Landlord who also shared our hilltop with us. But as we approached our hill and started our ascent, we started to see the billowing black smoke coming from the exact location of our house! I started to feel a knot in my stomach as my mind raced about the events of my morning before we left for Rome, “Did I turn all the burners off on the stove?”. We tried to remain calm but as we took the last turn to our house a fire truck was directly in front of us and was heading up to OUR house! Suddenly we pull up into our house and we hear the sounds of airplanes overhead as they swirl above our house carrying water and dumping it…but their target was the field next our house, not our house itself.
Our neighbor is also standing on his upper deck and is looking fearfully at the field next door (it is actually closer to his house than to ours). He sees us pull up and frantically get out of our car. He shouts down to us saying it’s ok. The fire has been put out but it had caused him much distress and a furry of activity ensued while we had been gone,
Later we took a walk to the desolated field. It was charred black and all of the trees and shrubs were burnt to a crisp. Fortunately no houses or olive groves had been destroyed in the flames.
Two weeks later we started a hike to our local winery and cut through the charred field. We were so shocked to see wild asparagus sprouting through the ashes! Some asparagus were already three feet tall! So we started to walk amongst the blackened earth and charred shrubs looking for the precious sprouts to forage.
We felt like we were walking on the surface of the moon it was so stark and devastated. But it was such a delight to see the earth wanted to survive, more than that, it wanted to flourish! I had always heard that fires can actually encourage some plants to grow and this must be true of our asparagus because our season for foraging the wild Asparagus had already ended about a month earlier. But here we were harvesting more than we had during the peak time.
So we returned home with our precious cargo and I headed to the kitchen to make Asparagus Risotto from our foraged asparagus. You can make this recipe with cultivated asparagus also, just make sure to chop it up finely, even using a food processor, but you don’t want it blended, just chopped coarsely.
Asparagus Risotto (Risotto agli Asparagi)
Ingredients:
- 1 Tablespoon olive oil
- 1 chopped onion
- 1 clove of garlic, finely chopped
- 1 cup asparagus chopped finely
- 1 1/2 cup rice for Risotto (Arborio or any short grain starchy rice)
- 1 qt or liter broth (I use chick) keep heated on a burner
- Salt (adjust according to taste, depending on how much salt is in the broth)
- 1/2 cup white wine
- 2 Tablespoons butter
- 1/2 cup Parmesan cheese (freshly grated preferred)
Instructions:
Place a pot of water or broth on the stove and bring to a boil, this is to add to your Risotto slowly. Chop finely the Asparagus and chop the onion and garlic.
Heat olive oil in pot, sauté onion until translucent, add finely chopped asparagus and continue to sauté, add arborio rice and salt and sauté, stirring a few minutes. Add white wine and allow to evaporate while stirring occasionally, just a few minutes.
Once the liquid has evaporated in your risotto, continue adding hot broth 1/2 cup at a time stirring occasionally while you allow it to evaporate. Continue adding hot liquid 1/2 cup at a time until the rice has cooked to the “al dente” stage. At the end, just before serving, add the butter and Parmesan .
I like mine on the “soupy” side when I serve it, it will continue to firm up as it cools. The result is a velvety smooth and creamy risotto, real comfort food!
I was intimidated to make risotto because it seemed tricky and it seemed you had to stand there and stir it the whole time. I have found that while I am preparing other parts of the meal it is easy to watch the risotto and give it a stir every couple of minutes. It really is not complicated or difficult!
