You can tell, I am determined to make the best of the short-lived wild garlic season. It’s a veg that locally starts to appear at farmers markets around mid-March and will be gone again come May. With this small window, it’s a good thing this superfood can be used in a multitude of ways in the kitchen.
If you look for recipes with wild garlic, then you will quickly realize there is no shortage of use. But as always, the simplest are usually the best.
That’s why I love to combine it raw, as pesto or wild garlic butter. Which also plays towards the fact that it will lose most of its subtle flavour if it’s cooked over a prolonged time.
I am also a girl who loves risotto, and thankfully there is no shortage of different risotto recipes either.
That said, off course risotto will be made always in the same way. The difference comes from the flavours added, usually at the final stretch of the cooking time.
Enter wild garlic and you have a match made in heaven.
And once again, there are various ways to make wild garlic risotto. I have initially made a version adding chopped row wild garlic at the end of the cooking time, but since tried a different approach working the vegetable into a wild garlic butter which will be added again at the end of the cooking time.
Both versions are making a fantastic risotto, and only require a little bit of tweaking.
Wild Garlic Risotto Recipe
Serves 4
500 g risotto rice
150 ml white wine
1.5 l vegetable broth
2 small onions
1 garlic glove
150 g grated parmesan cheese
6 tablespoons of olive oil
200 g of wild garlic
100 g butter at room temperature (optional)
Wash and dry the wild garlic, then roughly chop the leaves.
Put aside if you want to make the version with wild garlic added raw.
If you are opting for the risotto with wild garlic butter, add butter and wild garlic in a bowl and puree until obtaining a homogenous mixture. Put aside.
Heat the vegetable broth. Peel and finely shop the onions and garlic.
In a large saucepan, heat 3 tablespoons of olive oil over medium heat. Add onions and garlic and fry gently until glassy. Add the risotto and fry until the rice starts to turn glassy too (approximately another minute).
Add the white wine and let it reduce while occasionally stirring. Once the white wine has cooked nearly completely into the rice, start adding the first ladle of hot vegetable broth. Turn down the heat to a simmer and stir the rice occasionally. Once the broth is nearly absorbed, keep adding another ladle until the rice is soft but still has a slight bite. This will take about 15 minutes.
At that point, stop adding broth and continue the simmer until the broth still in the saucepan has nearly absorbed into the rice. Add either the wild garlic butter or the chopped wild garlic leaves. Stir to combine well into the rice.
Take from the heat and add the parmesan. Season with salt and pepper.
Serve with fried shrimps.
If you want to make this delicious risotto, hurry as the wild garlic season in Europe is approaching its final days. Otherwise, safe it for next year.
Carrots and Tigers 