Tuesday, June 30, 2009

truffles

Friends recently visited Portland and hit the farmer's market there on their way out of town Saturday. Generously, they brought fresh Oregon white truffles down to NM.



We decided to use a couple in risotto. First, some stock from the freezer:





A couple of shallots:



Melt a bit of butter in some olive oil



then saute the shallots until clear



cook the rice in the oil a bit



then start adding liquid. First a cup or so of wine, then the now-hot stock, a cup at a time and the rice stirred until each addition of liquit is absorbed.



Once the last of the liquid is absorbed, add another knob of butter and let it rest a bit



Stir in the butter and a bit of freshly grated Parmesan cheese, then grate a couple of the truffles on top



Stir in the truffle and serve right away. In this case, accompanied by some fresh homemade bread



and some fresh asparagus steamed and then tossed with a bit of Meyer lemon oil from the BJ Cohn Winery.



The truffles add a spicy, earthy note that was subtle but very good. Something I'd never tried before. Thanks, M & Kt!

p.s. This book has the best directions for making risotto that I've found.

4 comments:

Borepatch said...

It takes quite a while, which has kind of scared me off from trying it.

I like food for lazy people. ;-)

mdmnm said...

Borepatch,

Risotto does take a while, but it really isn't bad. The first couple of liquid additions you don't have to stand over it stirring all the time. That only comes the last ten or fifteen minutes or so. Total cooking time, perhaps forty minutes, most of which you can work on the rest of dinner.

Matt Mullenix said...

Your photo, "A Couple of Shallots" can stand on its own as art!

Nice post!

Matt

mdmnm said...

Thanks, Matt!