Yesterday morning I woke up to a fabulous English breakfast with real bacon that we smuggled over from the UK. In Italy, black truffles are prized and command crazy prices, in our house bacon is prized above all else. When we have a power cut due to storms, my first thoughts go to the bacon in the freezer.

As I am pretty adept at burning food, Fräulein is normally in charge of the kitchen and she can prepare Asian and European cuisine. Last night we were expecting some friends over for dinner and I, after a couple of glasses of wine suggested I could cook risotto. After all I do have some experience at cooking risotto, in 2016 I did cook king prawn and asparagus risotto.

In the local supermarket I set Fräulein the task of buying the usual shopping whilst I went in search of ingredients for the risotto. In the pasta aisle I accosted a woman and using my fabulous linguistic abilities I asked her some questions.

Me, in broken Italian holding up a packet of rice: Is best for risotto?

Italian woman: No, this packet of rice is much better.

Me, holding up a kilo of rice: enough for 4 friends?

Italian woman laughing, more than enough, 100 grams is enough for one person.

At home and checking my ingredients, I noticed I had forgot to buy an onion a very important item! The problem was solved by asking Fräulein to scrounge one from Doris our neighbour, Can you imagine an Italian called Doris!!

So here is my recipe.

Difficulty

Possible with the help of several glasses of wine. Oh and Carmen.

Preparation time

30 minutes

Cooking time

30 minutes

Serves

4

Ingredients:
200 grams of fresh salmon.

200 grams of  fresh asparagus

400 grams of Carnaroli rice (Arborio is ok too if you cannot find Carnaroli)

1 Large onion, very important, don’t forget it.

1 Crushed clove garlic

1 bottle of dry white wine chilled.

2 glasses of dry white wine room temperature.

1 litre of vegetable stock. I used a stock cube with a couple of asparagus spears.

1.5 litres of boiling water

1 Bunch of parsley ( I also forgot this)

2 Big knobs of butter

1 tablespoon of creamy cheese.

Salt

Pepper 

Specialist Equipment

2 Sauce pans

Large shallow pan, better if stainless steel

Chopping board

Sharp knife

Wooden spoon

Big ladle 

Medium wine glass

How to cook:
1) Open the chilled wine and pour yourself a glass. I find this aids cooking.

2) Add stock cube, 2 asparagus spears and 1 litre of water into a saucepan and bring to the boil. Or be super clever and make your own vegetable stock.

3) Pour a glass of wine and a glass of water into a saucepan and 2 asparagus and when it has started simmering, add the salmon. Poach for about 8 minutes. Then remove salmon and put to one side.

4) Wash and cut the asparagus into 2 cm pieces, discard the ends of the asparagus because if it is ‘woody’ they will remain hard. Simmer for 3 to 5 mins. Then put to one side.

5) Peel onion and slice into little pieces and crush one garlic.,

6) Melt knob of butter into frying pan, the larger the better; pan fry the onion until just soft, try not to burn it, add rice and toast it for a few minutes. Throw in glass of room tempreture wine.

7) When wine has vaporized, add a ladle of stock whilst it’s still boiling, obviously. Stir with a wooden spoon on minimum fire until the liquid has been absorbed. Repeat the action for around 10 – 12 minutes.

8) Throw salmon and asparagus into the rice and repeat step 7 until you think rice is completely cook. I keep tasting the rice from time to time and when that failed I called in Carmen and asked her advice, she suggested more stock and another 5 mins. This solved the problem

9) Away from the fire mix knob of butter and cheese into risotto, stir energetically, add salt if required and serve sprinkling fresh parsley, black pepper and some more cheese on top.

If the chilled bottle of wine isn’t empty, well done. I went through a couple of glasses trying to make the risotto.