Christmas Eve Dinner: Creamy Parmesan-Asparagus Risotto

This has been overdue, but I think I'd like to share our Christmas Eve dinner to my blog readers.

I've suddenly been hit with an urge to cook for Christmas Eve dinner this year. I haven't been cooking much lately at home, and so to celebrate the holiday season, I went and told my sister in law ahead of time that I was planning to contribute to the holiday season by cooking a dish on that day.

Actually, I've been thinking very much of cooking Risotto for some time already. I've only cooked it once, and it was pretty much very welcomed by the whole family. Additionally, its not that difficult to whip up, it just needs a bit of time to prepare and cook the batch, but you can never really go wrong with it. Plus, you end up with a rich, sumptuous, classy looking dish that's bound to win over almost everybody... at least everybody that's not on a diet anyway.

I mean, its Christmas. Who goes on a diet on Christmas?

For this Christmas Eve, I'm going to prepare a creamy asparagus risotto. I've done this before, and it shouldn't be any problem. I'd love to give you a picture, as it really did look nice, creamy and classy, but I didn't occur to me to snap a picture of it then. But you can have/make your own version.. they're almost the same looking, anyway.


Creamy Asparagus Parmesan Risotto

For the asparagus:
Bunch of Fresh Asparagus Stalks (Green), around 20-30 stalks, cut into 1.5 inch pieces
4-5 cups of water
salt

For the risotto:
Fresh block of Parmesan Parmigiano Reggiano, grated to minute flakes up to 1 to 1.5 cup (not densely packed)*
350g risotto Rice (Arborio variety is preferrable)**
1L chicken stock, slightly salty/salted
Olive oil
some garlic/onion (optional)

Serves 5-6 people
^See precooking notes first for more details

Instructions
For the asparagus:
1. In a small cooking pot, place the water and bring to a boil. Add a dash of salt.
2. Place the lower end of the asparagus stalks into the boiling water first, as the head of the asparagus cooks more quickly. Let it cook for 1 minute.
3. Place in the head section of the remaining asparagus stalks into the boiling water. Let it cook for 2 minutes. You want the asparagus to be cooked, but not overcooked, as these will be added to the risotto later, and will cook further.
4. Strain the asparagus out of the water. Set aside the stalks and let cool.
5. Keep the water used for boiling the asparagus, and add in the chicken stock so that the flavors will mix. This will serve as the base flavor of your risotto. Keep the stock in low heat.

For the risotto:
1. Prepare the pot where you'll be cooking the risotto. Take note that this will have to be able to contain a lot of cooked rice, so you want it to be big enough to carry all the ingredients.
2. Heat up the pan, and add in the olive oil. Make sure you have enough olive oil to be able to "sautee" the rice grains and cover them with olive oil completely.
3. When the olive oil is hot, you can optionally add the garlic/onion. Cook them first until the onions are clear.
4. Add in all the arborio rice grains and sautee them until they are completely covered in olive oil and the grains are slightly clearing. This should take around 5 minutes.
5. Add a ladleful of the stock from the asparagus-chicken stock combination. Continue slowly mixing the rice grains until the stock has been completely absorbed.
6. Continue this process by adding a ladleful of stock at a time until the stock has been completely used up, or the consistency is creamy, but the grains are still individually definite. This process should take around 30 minutes. DO NOT LEAVE THE RICE COOKING WITHOUT CONTINUOUS MIXING, OR COVERING THE POT WITH THE COVER.
6. At this point the rice grains should be almost cooked, but the center of the grain is still slightly uncooked (this is indicated by the obvious opaqueness still at the center of the grain). Add in the grated parmesan cheese until they are evenly spread within the risotto mixture.
7. Finally, add the asparagus and mix also until they are evenly spread.
8. When all the ingredients are mixed in, cover up the pot with the cover and let it cook for 2-5 more minutes, until the center of the grain is also translucent/cooked.
9. Turn off the heat and serve pipping hot.

Pre-cooking notes:
* Parmesan Parmigiano Reggiano - Getting a fresh block and shredding it when needed is always better than having a commercial prepackaged, already shredded version because the cheese looses its flavor very fast. If you get the chance to check a fresh block of this cheese, you can tell of the freshness that I'm talking about very easily because the cheese will smell very fragrant, rich and with depth, compared to the commercialized shredded version, which will smell and taste bland by comparision. But if the fresh block is inaccessible, the commercially prepackaged ones will have to do - but account maybe 15-20% more cheese in this case, instead of the 1-1.5 cup mentioned in the ingredients section.
** Risotto rice - there are actually three varieties for making risotto rice - Arborio, Carnaroli and Vialone Nano - but I am more familiarly acquainted to Arborio since it is the more widely available. All are medium to short rice grains, where the starch content is high, and adds to the creamy quality of the risotto dish. Long grains are a definite no no, as they contain the least amount of starch, and will be extremely unsuitable with risotto dishes.


I served this dish to my family, and I'm satisfied to say that despite the serving of 5-6 people, it was quickly finished by the 4 of us. :) I accompanied the dish with some assortment cold cuts (smoked turkey ham, lean ham, smoked salmon with tartar sauce) to complement the creaminess of the dish, and it worked out perfectly. My sister in law also prepared a chinese style stir fried rice vermicelli as an option for my grandmother (whose palate is more inching towards traditional chinese tastes) but turns out my grandmother liked both risotto and rice vermicelli equally.... and she did also gobble up a lot of the smoked salmon, which all of us found surprising. Seems like my grandmother knows fine food when she has them, even if they're western based :) All in all, a nice Christmas Eve dinner.

I hope everyone else had a fine Christmas/Christmas Eve dinner. Merry Christmas, Everyone!