Leek, Guanciale, and Goat Cheese Risotto

I've expressed before that when I want comfort food, I want rice. It features often on the blog: fried rice, arroz con pollo, jook, and paella. But of all the rice dishes, risotto for me is the ultimate in rich comfort, something that we sorely need right now.

On top of our concerns about our kids and their safety during this pandemic, Ann's mother is in the ICU and not likely to survive. Our inability to travel to the East Coast and visit with her has turned us inside out. We want comfort food now more than ever.

That was the genesis of this risotto: coping with our depressing world by making something comforting out of whatever was in the refrigerator.

This is a post on risotto technique. I diverge only from classic technique at the end during the mantecatura by adding goat cheese rather than butter and Pecorino or Parmigiano. My stomach cannot tolerate a lot of cow's milk products, so I use goat cheese instead. The technique remains the same.

Isn't it wonderful that the Italians have a verb, mantecare, for the final stage in making a dish unctuous and creamy by stirring in butter, cheese, or both?

Leek, Guanciale, and Goat Cheese Risotto
with Poached Eggs, Padrón Peppers, and Chipotle Aïoli

I scrounged the refrigerator and found a couple of leeks, a piece of guanciale, a bit of goat cheese, an open can of chipotles, and a few padrón peppers.

Guanciale is cured hog jowl, one of the best bits on the hog and similar in many respects to pancetta, which is made from pork belly. I used to cure both at the restaurant. Now I can buy guanciale at the grocery store where it is labelled jowl bacon.

For this risotto, I was looking for maximum comfort and in my culinary lexicon, that often means including poached eggs in dishes. There is something über-sexy about breaking open a just-poached egg and stirring the yolk into a dish. I topped each plate of rice with two poached eggs. I should do a post on how to poach eggs; they're so simple to do and so rewarding.

To finish gilding this lily, I made a quick chipotle aïoli (mayo, garlic, chipotle, salt, water) and blistered a few Padrón peppers for garnish.

Comfort mission accomplished!

Risotto Technique

No matter how risotti are flavored, the basic technique is the same. The photos below illustrate the various steps.

Rendering the Guanciale

The first step is almost every risotto is to cook finely diced onion (say a medium onion for this pan of risotto) in olive oil. I opted instead to use leeks, so I started the guanciale to render some fat in which to cook the leeks. It is not necessary to cook the leeks fully at this point because they will cook for another 20 minutes or so in the rice. Onions should be translucent, but have no color.

 

Coat the Rice in Fat Until the Edges Go Translucent

When the onions or leeks are done, add the rice and stir while coating it in fat. Use the best Arborio or other Italian short grain rice that you can find. There are several kinds that are as good or better than Arborio. Quality matters and good rice is relatively expensive. This 10" pan holds 250 grams of rice, comfortably. I buy Arborio in vacuum-sealed kilo bricks. A brick makes four nice pans of risotto.

Once the rice is coated in fat and its edges go translucent, add a glass of dry white wine and stir the rice. Adjust the heat so that the liquid just bubbles: risotto is not a dish to cook over high heat. Stir frequently. Once the wine has nearly evaporated, add stock or broth to cover the rice as you see in the picture just below. This is the only time that you will add this much stock to the pan at once. I used chicken stock that I made from the bones and skin after boning out chicken thighs.

For a red-wine based risotto, such as risotto al barolo, you'll want to use red wine and perhaps a darker stock, such as beef stock. Still, the technique is identical.

First Broth Addition

Stir every little while as the first addition of broth is absorbed into the rice. Stirring knocks the rice about and knocks little bits into the broth, helping to thicken it. Moderate the flame so that you are not boiling off the broth rapidly. When the liquid level drops below the surface of the rice, add more broth in small quantities such as 2-4 ounces for each addition. I find it helpful to use a professional 2-ounce ladle, available at any restaurant supply house.

Second and Subsequent Broth Additions

After you have added your two ounces or so of broth, the rice will resemble that above. That's how little additional broth you are adding. Keep adding broth in these tiny quantities, stirring frequently, until the rice is cooked. In my experience, it's going to take on the order of 20 minutes for the rice to cook, but that will vary with the freshness, dryness, and variety of the rice.

You'll want to taste the rice to assess whether it is done. Different people have different ideas about how done risotto rice should be cooked. Some like a distinct bite in the rice, some like it softer. I fall in the middle, but my full-blooded Italian wife likes it a bit softer than do I.

I have found that I can actively cook the rice until it just has the tiniest bite in the center, then turn off the flame and let the rice rest for two or three minutes. It will continue cooking to perfection.

Rice, Just Done

When you're happy with the rice, it needs to be finished and served immediately. Traditionally, you would stir in a couple tablespoons of butter and say 3/4 of a cup of grated cheese (Pecorino or similar). My stomach isn't happy with butter, so I stirred in roughly two, maybe three, ounces of fresh goat cheese.

Adjust the consistency if you need to with a splash of broth. Risotto shouldn't be runny or stiff, but pleasantly creamy.