Cibo e Famiglia (Food and Family): Sweet, Sweet Pea Risotto

Those small beautiful looking green peas of spring! Due to our ability to freeze vegtables, we are all able to take advantage of great looking, healthly vegtables all year long, but it's always a special treat to make peas in the spring. It helps one smile as we acknowledge that life is beginning to bloom once again with the sun shining and the warmth returning to our lives. At least that's how we feel in New England.......

This weekend, I made Sweet Pea Risotto different from my normal recipe, adapted from one I recently found in a Nigella Lawson cookbook. It is now my favorite, book marked and I will continue to use this as a base for all my risotto's, adding and changing as I go along. I can vision mushrooms and shrimp added to it as well.

Sweet Pea Risotto (serves four as a meal or eight appetizers)

8 Tablespoons unsalted butter - one stick
2 cups frozen sweet peas
8 cups chicken stock - warmed on stove
1/4 cup freshly grated Parmesan cheese
Nutmeg
Salt & Pepper
Extra virgin olive oil
4 shallots
2 cups arborio rice
2/3 cup white wine

To begin, melt two tablespoons of butter in a heavy pan and add the peas for two minutes, stirring. Remove half of the peas and set aside. Add a ladle of broth to the pan with the other half of the peas, cover and simmer for five minutes.

Take this mixture and puree in your food processor and set aside. Add the rest of the butter to the pan, a little oil and the shallots. Saute for approximately four minutes. First and foremost, you need the flavor of shallots. You can use onion, but I like the shallot flavor.

Yes there is a difference!

Add the rice and stir for a couple of minutes ensuring all the goodness gets covered. Add the wine and let it absorb. Begin to add the broth one ladle at a time and let each one absorb in the rice. When half way through the broth, add the whole peas stirring all the while until the broth is gone.