IMBB 4: California Risotto
Pim's suggestion of a rice dish for "Is My Blog Burning?"'s fourth incarnation coincided nicely with the latest issue of Art Culinaire. Among their many scrumptious recipes, they have an idea for risotto wrapped in prosciutto. Yum.
Risotto has a special place in Melissa's and my relationship. When we first started dating, it was my signature dish, and she loved it. I made it a lot. I have lots of good dishes now, but I still consider my risotto one of my best. Wrapping it in prosciutto (line a bowl with prosciutto; spoon in risotto; fold in edges of prosciutto) was a nice addition to a dish that embodies for us comfort and warmth. It adds fat and salt and, in theory, a nice presentation.
With of lot of mental leaps, I decided I wanted to do the California incarnation of the classic Risotto al Barolo, risotto in which a portion of the broth is replaced by Piedmont's king of wines, Barolo. Those of you who know Barolo will know that this is only cost-effective in Piedmont itself. My California incarnation substituted Zinfandel for the Barolo, and the phenomenal Capricious aged goat cheese from Northern California. I had plans to make my own duck breast prosciutto, but had to default to Prosciutto di Parma for lack of time. Next time, perhaps.
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| Eating Risotto al Zinfandel |
Some of you may be thinking: wouldn't that make for a very red risotto? Wrapped in a reddish ham product? Well, yes. This is, like so many things, obvious in retrospect. Melissa thought the presentation looked like brains oozing out of the prosciutto shell. Flavorwise, though, it worked nicely. You may also be thinking: oh, cooking with wine. That should burn off all the alcohol. This is more of a fallacy than one might think. Rather, it takes a long time to burn off the alcohol. Especially when you're keeping your risotto at a slow simmer. And this was an Amador County Zinfandel, notorious for their high alcohol content (even within the universe of Zinfandel, a notoriously high-alcohol wine). That made the dish fairly boozy. Still good, just boozy.
Though the star was the risotto, I also served up some leftover lamb chops and some steamed chard to go with it.
With so much Zinfandel on the plate, the wine was an obvious choice. Normally one is supposed to drink the same wine that was used in the dish, but I opened up a more intense Zin to complement the whole dish. In particular, the 1999 Gnarly Vines Zinfandel from Louis M. Martini's Monte Rosso vineyard, which I discovered while working on an article about old vine wines. A delicious wine, with a lot of character and depth and structure.
Melissa and I slept well that night, afloat on beds of rice and wine. Thanks, Pim, for a great idea.
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