Easy-Peasy or Asparagus "Risotto"

I like sticky rice. I always look forward to the bowl-shaped mound of sticky rice that accompanies my Thai curry basil. When I make red beans and rice, I purposely overcook the Basmati rice a touch just so the grains stick together for a pleasantly gluey feel in my mouth.

Creamy, small grains of rice that are melded together with the help of cheese, wine, and chicken broth, naturally, I’m a huge fan of risotto, when someone else makes it. Hey, I love making complex dishes, I love standing in front of my stove creating and cackling, but for all the love of my labor, I cannot make a satisfying risotto when my stomach is on an early schedule and my planned meal will not arrive until later in the evening. Sure, there are boxed instant risottos, and I am sure there is even parboiled Arborio Rice. Honestly, I never thought of these options, and I cannot even say they appeal to me. From scratch is my motto. However, fast and from scratch is my mission.

After a day of schlepping files and standing at the copy machine, I cannot stand the sound of my stomach’s whining. When it is time to appease my belly's infant-like tendencies and my longing for creamy rice-like dishes, I whipped up a short, pasta version of risotto using orzo pasta in place of risotto. Innovative? Not especially. Dang good? You know it!

Asparagus and Shrimp "Risotto"

This is one pasta dish that begs to not be al dente. Allow the orzo to get very soft and creamy

For two servings:

1 tablespoon unsalted butter
12 oz asparagus, woody ends trimmed, cut into 1 inch pieces
2 cloves garlic, smashed, green germ removed, and minced
8 oz shrimp

2/3 cup dry orzo ½ cup white wine
1 - 2 cups chicken stock
½ cup or so grated Parmigiano Reggiano
Salt and freshly ground pepper to taste

In a large skillet, heat butter. Add asparagus and sauté until they are crisp tender, about 8 to 10 minutes. Add garlic and shrimp. Sauté until shrimp is just turning opaque, about 2-3 minutes. Turn off heat, remove skillet from burner, salt and pepper mixture to taste, and cover to keep warm. Not only do I usually cover the skillet, to get the skillet out of my way, I'll put the it in my oven (not heated) until I'm ready to add the asparagus and shrimp to the rest of the dish.

While asparagus and shrimp are cooking, bring wine and 1 cup of stock to a boil and add orzo. Cook, uncovered, letting the liquid simmer merrily, letting the orzo absorb the wine and broth. If the liquid in the pot is absorbed and the orzo is not soft and creamy, add more stock. When orzo has reached your preferred stage of creamy and liquid is almost absorbed, add the Parmigiano Reggiano, asparagus, shrimp, and salt and pepper to taste.

If the variety police are patrolling, here is an equally good variation:

Prosciutto and Baby Pea "Risotto"

2 medium shallots
1 tablespoon butter

½ cup white wine
1 - 2 cups chicken stock
2/3 cup dry orzo
½ cup or so grated Parmigiano Reggiano
1 cup frozen baby peas
3 oz prosciutto, chopped
Salt and freshly ground pepper to taste

Sauté shallot and butter together in a medium stock pan. Add wine and stock. Bring to a boil. Add orzo and proceed as above but add the peas to the orzo and liquid during the last 4 minutes of cooking the pasta. Add Parmigiano Reggiano, Prosciutto, and salt and pepper to taste.

Now I Gnocchi!

It’s just plain fun to say “gnocchi.” Perhaps this is what prompted me to try this silky and luscious potato dumpling.

Shane: What are we having for supper this evening?
Emilie: Gnocchi. Giggle, snort.

For those who want to pronounce ga-nawchee (much the way I pronounced it until a friend of mine who claims to be Italian laughingly corrected me), repeat aloud: no-chee. Almost akin to saying “no-cheese,” but my gnocchi had Parmigianino grated into the dough.

Admittedly, my little dumplings were not very eye-appealing. Because they were so sticky, as I plopped them one-by-one into boiling water, I could not keep them in their original, pillow-shaped stage. Gnocchi are fickle little guys. At first they want plenty of flour to bind the potatoes, eggs, and spices. However, too much flour and they become bloated and anchored, refusing to free their little gnocchi-selves to rise to the top of the boiling water. Wouldn’t you just gnocchi?

To dignify the not-so-uniform appearance of my gnocchi, I topped the gnocchi with some of my basic marinara enhanced with a touch of well-aged and earthy Gorgonzola cheese. Without the added blue cheese, marinara sauce is just red sauce: tomatoes, onion, garlic, olive oil, and fresh basil. It’s meant to top pizza crusts, be mixed with meat and wine for ragu, or sometimes added to Italian soups for extra punch. If I have some marinara in the freezer, I’ve been known to make a bean and tomato sauce with bacon, and in a pinch on a busy night and when the budget says “recess,” it is tasty enough to toss with plain pasta, cheese or no cheese. Gnocchi, however, is no plain pasta. With enough body to strut in only stilettos, less is certainly more when it comes to how gnocchi should dress. Fitting a lightly sweetened gnocchi with a heavy sweater of red is a fall fashion travesty. How will I do things differently next time? To serve the gnocchi with browned butter mingled with fresh thyme could quite possibly become my fall of ’08 runway hit.

Just the Gnocchi:

Four servings

1 pound russet potatoes
1 pound orange-fleshed sweet potatoes
1 egg plus 1 egg yolk
2 cloves of garlic, green germ removed and minced
½ cup grated Parmigiano-Reggiano
½ teaspoon salt
A couple of pinches of nutmeg
Freshly ground black pepper
1 ¼ to 1 ½ cups all purpose flour plus more for dusting

Preheat oven to 375 degrees. Prick russet and sweet potatoes, wrap them each in foil, and bake for 1 hour or until soft. Remove from oven and let cool. Once potatoes have cooled enough to handle, peel potatoes and pat off any excess water. Using a standard potato masher, mash potatoes together in a large bowl. Try to mash as many lumps out as you can, although I admit that I left a few lumps on accident. It didn’t seem to hurt the texture. If you own a potato ricer, dust it off, thank the person who gave it to you as an oddball present, and try it. I wish I had one.

Bring a pot of water to boil. Rip up some sheets. Panic. Oh, wait, I’m not in a sitcom and Lucy is not giving birth. However, do start a pot of water to boil because after the flour is added to the dough, you will want to test a dumpling.

Make a well in the mashed potatoes. Add the egg and egg yolk, garlic, cheese, salt, nutmeg, and pepper. Mix well. My hands were the best instrument in this case. Go ahead, get them dirty. Sprinkle about a ½ cup of flour over the mixture and press it in to the dough. Fold dough and sprinkle over more flour. Keep doing this with the remainder of the flour until the dough begins to hold together. You may not need all the flour. In fact, I’d recommend not using all the flour. When the dough is rolled, it will pick up more flour, and you do not want overly-floured gnocchi dough. Do not be afraid of sticky dough. Yes, sticky dough does make ugly gnocchi, but too stiff of a dough will produce a heavy dumpling that will not float. Form a ½ inch piece from the dough and drop it into the boiling water. It should only take about 1 – 1 ½ minutes for the dumpling to float. If the dumpling looks feathery and eventually falls apart, add more flour to the dough. If the dumpling does not float, too much flour has been added to the dough.

Much like an Olympic swimmer soaring to the water’s surface, I’m sure your test piece of gnocchi swam flawlessly to the top of the water. So now the dough is ready to roll and cut. Sprinkle a bit of flour on your work surface, and flour your hands. Divide the dough into 4 to 6 pieces. Keeping the unused dough covered, roll each piece into a ½ inch log and with a serrated knife cut log into ½ inch pieces. The pieces will not be pretty, and your stomach will not care. Continue rolling and cutting with the remainder of the dough keeping the unused dough and formed gnocchi covered.

I hope your water is still boiling. In batches, submerge the dumplings into the boiling water. With a slotted spoon, be ready to scoop the dumplings as they start floating toward the top. It’s likely they will not all cook at the same time, so don’t leave the early developers while you’re waiting for the rest of the dumplings to rise to the surface. Let cooked gnocchi drain in a strainer. After all the gnocchi are cooked, serve with your choice of sauce, keeping in mind you don’t want to cover the delicate taste and texture with anything heavy. Serve with a light salad and a medium-dry white wine.

*Make extra gnocchi and freeze uncooked gnocchi on a cookie sheet lined with wax paper. Once frozen (about an hour later) place gnocchi in a freezer safe bag. When ready to cook, no thawing is necessary; just cook the frozen gnocchi as usual. Talk about an easy weeknight meal!

Flour, Water, Salt

Concepts that float around and somewhat astound me: people born in 1998 are turning 10 years old this year, which means I will celebrate my 30th birthday this July; Shane enjoys cleaning the bathroom; and a small boule of artesian bread costs $3.00. Add walnuts or raisins to the bread and add another $2.00 to the cost.

What makes bread? Bread is made from flour, water, salt, and leavening, and leavening in this case is a pinch of active yeast juxtaposed with time.

So I will make my own $3.00 bread. In fact, as a good night’s sleep gave me a brilliant idea as I was mixing the ingredients for my dough. I will add fresh thyme and increase the value of my bread to $5.00. Brilliant! I hastily cleaned and stripped thyme twigs. Brilliant! What else can I contribute to my dough? Dried Kalamata figs? I hurriedly chop 3, no 6 figs and add them to the mix. Just right for a small, yet fig-filled, loaf, six figs and about two tablespoons of fresh thyme tickled my nose as I kneaded this morning’s loaf. How fancy of me.

As the loaf baked, comforting smells of sweet and savory drifted in and out of the kitchen. However, the taste of both the thyme and figs were lost in the overall loaf. On my next attempt at a fancy loaf, I will double the amount of figs, and up the thyme to three tablespoons for a one pound (or just under) loaf of bread. If you like a more subtle loaf, keep the amounts as written in my recipe. Typed in parentheses are amounts I believe will make a stronger flavored loaf. I’ll file this one under “still experimenting.”

My First Attempt at a Fig and Thyme Boule

½ cup all purpose flour
¼ cup whole wheat flour
½ cup lukewarm water
1/8 teaspoon active dry yeast

Mix ingredients together in a large bowl, cover, and let sit overnight up to 12 hours. Mixture will be bubbly by the end of 8 hours, but I leave mine for almost 12 hours to increase the flavor of the bread.


When ready to knead the dough, add to the above mixture:

1 ½ cups all purpose flour
½ cup whole wheat flour
1/8 teaspoon active dry yeast
1 teaspoon salt
2 tablespoons fresh thyme (3 tablespoons)
6 medium to large dried figs, roughly chopped (12 large)

Add 1 – 1 ½ cups lukewarm water to the mixture. Feel your way through the dough. Sticky dough is good, but do not allow the dough to become soupy. If too much water is added, balance it with a few spoonfuls of flour. The sticky dough will become firmer as the flour soaks up the excess water. Knead dough until it is firm, bouncy, and it passes the windowpane test. This could take up to 20-25 minutes. If you’re used to kneading bread dough in a food processor or with dough hooks in a stand mixer, feel free to do so. I have never kneaded dough with anything but my ten digits, two palms, and a lot of four letter words, so I have no clue how long either of these machines will take to knead bread dough. However, if kneading by machine, I would recommend adding the figs afterwards and just kneading them in by hand until they are incorporated into the dough. A few figs will pop out of the dough on occasion; just poke them back into the dough.

Shape dough into a tight ball and place in a lightly greased large bowl. Cover with plastic wrap or lid. Let rise for 2-3 hours, or until dough has doubled in size. Punch down dough and shape into a boule or whatever shape is preferred. I shaped my dough into a boule and let it rise freeform. However, I usually prefer shaping it to fit my 9 inch round rising basket.

Okay, it’s shaped. To keep dough from drying out on top, I cover the top of the dough with greased plastic wrap. Some bakers prefer lightly dusting a tea towel (non-fuzzy towel) with flour and draping that over the top of the dough, but I’ve never had luck with the towel’s not sticking to the dough.

Rise bread for half as long as the first rise, 1 – 1 ½ hours. At least 30 minutes before the bread has finished rising, preheat the oven to 450 degrees. Slash bread and bake for 30-35 minutes. I usually bake my bread for 35 minutes, but I like well-browned bread. To check for doneness, insert an instant read thermometer into a conspicuous section of the bread (somewhere on the bottom). When it reads 190 – 200 degrees, bread is done. Remove bread from the oven and let cool on a rack completely before slicing.

Listen closely to the bread. When it’s fresh from the oven the bread will sound of crackling, akin to a fall fire or carbon paper receipts being crumpled. Over crashing symbols, pop songs, and even cicadas in the summer, freshly baked bread is my preferred music.