I first read about risotto style pasta in Mark Bittman’s The Minimalist Column in the New York Times last November. Since then we have fallen in love with this method of cooking pasta and made it in many variations. I have been meaning to write a post about it for months.
Slowly adding stock to the pasta, as you would arborio rice gives you a wonderful creamy, yet cream free sauce. Just like risotto it is extremely versatile and wonderfully comforting. I like it best with gemelli or penne and found that the orechiette have a tendency to stick together.
I had some beautiful local asparagus from Anderson Orchard that I bought at the North Market farmers market last weekend. My favorite preparation for asparagus is grilling it, but yesterday I was in a pasta mood, so I used half of it for risotto.
I also used some of my foraged Hocking Hills ramps, and some Wayward Seed baby leeks from the Greener Grocer. The stock was made from duck wings from North Market Poultry and Game. Other ingredients were, onion, pasta (bronze press pasta works best to hold the sauce), a little lemon zest and juice, parmesan, salt & pepper and olive oil. I would have probably added a little white wine if I had some open.
If you don’t have a favorite risotto recipe, here is a Nigel Slater recipe for leek risotto that could easily be adapted.
