Lombardy Meal

The first thing I made from Lombardy was Risotto. The recipe was originally supposed to have the freshly picked stems of wild bladder campion, but that doesn't exist in Ithaca in early April. When reading about what bladder campion is, it said that it was similar to wild asparagus. We don't have that in early April either, but I saw that Wegmans had really thin tender asparagus so decided to substitute it for the campion.

The first step of making risotto is sauteing the onions (or other veggies) in butter. You then add all of the dry rice and coat it in the butter you used while sauteing, which is what you see above. Once it is all coated, you add the vegetable broth. This is done in half cup increments, and takes about an hour. Once the previous half cup of liquid is completely absorbed into the rice, you add the next one, stirring constantly until the rice is al dente.

I added the asparagus at the last minute so that it wouldn't overcook, and it was cooked perfectly. I think the rice could have used a little more liquid, but it is hard to get risotto perfect so I was very happy with the final product.

The first step to making the pear tart for desert was simmering the sliced pears in red wine, cloves, cinnamon sticks, and sugar. This took a lot longer than I was expecting, but I put it on early so it wasn't a problem.

I ran into a few problems with the crust. It wouldn't stick together like a normal dough, and I'm not sure if this was because I used whole wheat flour or because I added the melted butter when it was still extremely hot. I was supposed to roll out the dough like a normal pie crust and then roll out strips to criss cross on top, but there was no chance of this dough rolling. I ended up just lining the pie pan with it and pressing it down with my fingers. It reminded me a little of a graham cracker crust.

Even though the dough didn't turn out like it was supposed to, the tart was delicious. I actually think it was better than it would have been with a normal pie crust. I usually hate crust and my sister eats it for me, but this crust was really good. The recipe said that the tart come into it's true fragerance about 24 hours after being baked, and I would definitely agree with this. The first night it was tasty, but fell apart in my plate, and the second day it stuck together and was delecious.