The emphasis here in on New American / Nouvelle Cuisine preparation, simple fresh flavors with straightforward flavor complements, and a neo-classic interpretation on the risotto. Ok, that sounded fancy, but really all I was going for was making mirepoix, a truly foundational element in classic cuisine, a standout player in the course and the meal. The risotto was the centerpiece of the meal, which entailed cooking arborio rice in chicken broth with mirepoix, and separately preparing a mirepoix to top the risotto. So we have both mirepoix as foundation and mirepoix as accoutrement; and but of course, mirepoix will go with mirepoix.
For the risotto I started off with the arborio in a little olive oil to ... hmmm, what is the name for what I did? I put some olive oil in a hot pan (high heat) and added the arborio, tossing it in the hot oil until the tooth of the risotto grains become mostly translucent through about 2/3's of the volume of each grain. What do you call that? ... Well there's a
great discussion of the science involved in cooking risotto that reveals there are two rice starches in play: Amylopectin and Amylose.
The trick to cooking risotto in my opinion, is getting the amylose to soften enough, while keeping the amylopectin intact long enough. It seems to me (and this is strictly a cook's observation rather than a scientific analysis) that the amylopectin needs to be either shielded from the hot cooking liquid that will be added, or that by permeating the amylopectin with oil early in the process, it's temporarily suspended with the oil (as in an emulsion of a fat and starch) which keep the risotto from becoming too creamy too quickly. If you get too creamy too quickly, you seem to end up with either undercooked kernels or cement-like risotto. By getting the creaminess to coincide with the right level of cooking of the amylose (which makes up most of the final grain of cooked risotto), you help to ensure an elegant texture.
Again this is observational, but one thing that the experts say about cooking risotto is to add the liquid gradually to ensure success. I've found this annoying, time consuming, and impractical in a commercial kitchen. So with some experimentation, I've found success with cooking the risotto first in olive oil until mostly translucent (there will be a kernel of opaque white in the center of each grain) and then adding all the liquid in which I intend to cook the risotto.
Many recipes will advocate sweating the aromatics first, then adding the risotto to toast or saute, then the liquid gradually. I also take exception to this. If you want to flavor anything, flavor the liquid directly before adding it to the risotto, don't bother with sweating onions along with the rice. I've actually had some inconsistent results with sweating the rice with the onion, specifically it just seems that risotto requires more work to get it right when you do this. One hypothesis I have is that the water and other compounds that sweat from the onion inhibit the saturation of the oil with the rice. I suppose if you fully sweat the onion first, then add the rice, you don't have this problem, but then you will likely brown the onion and end up with sharp flavor components that tend to really not play well with risotto. So back to what to call this, well the jury is out, and I've pinged Martin at
khymos for an expert food science opinion, but for now I'll propose to call this either "mounting the amylopectin", or more simply "tempering the risotto".
And now back to the risotto preparation, after tempering the arborio rice, I added chicken broth roughly equal to 3 times the volume of the rice, added two bay leaves and set the burner on high. When the mixture reached a boil, I reduced to a strong simmer and added a cup of diced white onion. About 10-15 minutes later I removed the bay leaves, added strips of carrot, and after another 10 minutes I added sliced celery. I only periodically stirred this maybe 4 times in 35-40 minutes. Two piece of advice from the experts are worth heeding: use a wooden spoon as a metal spoon will tend to cause more damage to the rice when stirring, and use a stainless or stainless lined pan to avoid interaction with acids in the preparation (white wine is common flavor element in risotto recipes); I always just use a stainless chef's pan for risotto. You may need to add additional broth, or water. After the first 20 minutes, you will want to periodically taste the liquid and test the doneness of the risotto. I prefer just a little bite, but not al dente or toothy risotto, at least usually.
The second mirepoix preparation involved steaming some sliced carrots in the microwave, a quick saute of onions and celery in a small amount of olive oil, and then combining the carrots with the other aromatics and mounting the mixture with a little high grade organic butter and kosher salt. After 2 more minutes, remove from the heat and top the plated risotto with this mixture. For a more visually stimulating presentation, I think I would go to the trouble of creating a brunoise of the carrots and celery to match a uniform small dice of onions. The flavor was really fresh, light, nuanced (high praise for what is typically a foundational element to many, many, many other dishes ... yes mirepoix in this case was the star. Everyone needed a second helping.
Figs appear to be just coming into season as they magically appeared at Sunflower today, and on a whim I decided to roast these and then glaze with a mixture of brown sugar, water, and soy sauce. Scrumptious, soy sauce and figs, that's one to remember. The brown sugar and water muted the strong flavor of the soy sauce and as a player in the flavor, soy sauce greatly complemented the wonderfully fresh figs.
For the fennel, I simply play with the classic Italian pairing of fennel and orange by substituting supremes of grapefruit. My wife inquired, "What is the dressing on the fennel", to which I replied, "Nothing". She countered, "Really?!!", to which I said, "Yah, nothing". So apparently grapefruit and orange share enough similar volatile flavor components to make this pairing nearly as successful. I'm not about to say it's as good, but it was good; if you haven't had fennel and orange, go try that first and then try this. Certainly good enough in this instance to add it to my repertoire.
Lastly, we find the protein. At this point I think the flavor pairing of shallots, rosemary, and red meat qualifies as a personal classic. It yields consistently good results with beef and lamb (though good spring lamb seems to also like a little touch of garlic), so time for a tougher red meat challenge with rosemary + shallots + sea salt: let's see if it works with a little ostrich (to be continued).
