Bacon and egg risotto

This is a recipe from the Ojai Valley Inn courtesy of the Los Angeles Times' Culinary SOS column. Risotto is pretty flexible so just moving the flavors from Italian to American isn't all that interesting, but instead of dumping a bunch of cheese in at the end, the recipe called for a raw egg yolk to be mixed into each serving at the table and that seemed worth a try.

I wanted to add some vegetation to the dish so I left out the minor amount of chives and substituted in a good bit of finely chopped broccolini. No doubt that ruined the balance of flavors Jaime West, the original chef, was looking for, but I think it still turned out fine.

Ingredients:
3 cups reduced-sodium chicken broth
1/2 onion, chopped
1/2 tablespoon butter
3/4 cups arborio rice
1/2 teaspoon minced garlic
3 strips bacon, preferably apple-wood-smoked, cut into 1/4-inch dice
1/8 cup grated Parmigiano-Reggiano
1/8 cup chopped chives [or a full cup of broccolini]
Sea salt
Freshly ground black pepper
2 egg yolks

1. In a medium saucepan, bring the broth to a simmer. Reduce the heat to low to keep the broth warm.

2. Meanwhile, in a 4-quart heavy pot over medium heat, cook the onion in the butter until softened, stirring often, about 5 minutes. Stir in the rice, garlic and bacon and cook, stirring frequently, until the bacon begins to brown, about 3 minutes.

3. Stir in one-half cup warm broth and continue to cook the rice at a simmer until the broth is absorbed, stirring frequently. Continue to add the broth, one-half cup at a time, stirring constantly until each addition is absorbed before adding the next, until the rice is creamy-looking but still slightly chewy, 18 to 20 minutes (you should have leftover broth). [I added the broccolini at around 10 minutes and ended up using the full three cups of broth and 25 minutes of cooking time.

4. Stir in the cheese and chives, and season with salt and pepper to taste.

5. Immediately divide the risotto between 2 warmed plates, and make an indentation in each mound of risotto for a yolk. Place a yolk in the center of each mound and serve immediately.



The egg flavor comes through clearly in the sauce so there's no mistaking this for a traditional risotto. It's rich and smokey with a little bit of bitterness from the broccolini. I think the flavors would be rather straightforward and boring without it though. I was more attentive to my stirring than usual and I think it paid off in rice that was firm but not chalky and a thick creamy sauce. I cut my bacon larger than the recipe called for so I had a little problem with chewing limp rubbery bacon pieces, but crisp really isn't an option in a risotto. Kind of misses the point of bacon, though; There are plenty of other ways of adding smoky flavor. I wonder if there's some way to make it work with a smoked ham hock instead.

Anyway, I did like it; Not as much as a traditional risotto with prosciutto and cheese instead of bacon and eggs, but I did like it well enough.

In search of a better quiche crust - part five

Once more into the laboratory. My last attempt at a crumb crust was bread crumbs mixed with cheese and blinded. This time I'm trying cracker crumbs instead. I've tried crackers previously with butter but the results weren't great and it added a lot of fat with no real benefit.

This time I'm trying a different, more appropriate I'm hoping, type of cracker, mixing it with just one Tablespoon of butter along with a half cup of grated cheese to see how that goes.

The particular crackers I choose are Finn crisps. Mild in flavor, not covered with any sort of flavoring dust, crisp and not too fibrous. I ran some through my spice grinder but they turned to dust so I ground the rest with a mortar and pestle to get some texture.

For the cheese, I used a cream havarti: a good melter without an overwhelming character so it should match well with whatever vegetables I dig out of the refrigerator. One problem I had last time was distributing the long strands of grated cheese. This time I made certain to always keep the shortest dimension of the piece of cheese perpendicular to the direction I was grating in. It's a pain in the butt and against every instinct, but I was rewarded with inch long fine shreds that mixed easily and uniformly with the cracker crumbs.

After 10 minutes at 350 degrees it's difficult to see much difference but a close inspection reveals areas where the cheese melted into the crumbs and bubbled up. The bubbles are coated with cracker dust so they're well camouflaged. It looks promising, but then so did the breadcrumb crust and that turned out rather oddly. I grated a bit of Parmesan over the crust as extra waterproofing before filling the crust.

For the filling, I sautéed some broccolini along with onions and peppers. Getting them good and browned as that really brings out broccolini's flavor. When they were ready I added a handful of chopped tomato, some ham and deglazed the pan with an Argentinean torrontés, whatever the heck that is. It has a tart flavor that I think goes well with the broccolini.

I decided to wing it on the custard as I think I've made enough to have the hang of them. I used four eggs, a cup of milk and a half cup of sour cream. Should be interesting.

Then into the over for 22 minutes at 350 degrees before I realized that it was supposed to be at 375. I checked it after a half hour and a knife in the center comes out clean so I guess it's done despite that. Well, a little on the underdone side as it turns out, but since I'm going to be freezing and reheating most of it, that's for the best.

Here's the bottom. You can see that this time the crust remained a separate layer. It isn't crisp, but it holds together and is firm to the bite. The flavor of the crackers comes through, though, distinct from the quiche proper, and a lovely counterpoint to the other flavors. I think I can call this a success; this is a proper crust. Not difficult at all and relatively low fat with the addition of only one Tablespoon of butter and a quarter cup of extra cheese that wasn't going to go into the quiche anyway.

The quiche itself itself is quite good: smooth, creamy and flavorful. the sour cream was fresh so there's not a whole lot of sour going on, but I think it helped out the texture nicely. There are the occasional pockets where the sour cream wasn't mixed in entirely that add another element of flavor to the dish. The chewiness of the ham is a nice contrast to the other textures and its smokey flavor goes particularly well with the lightly charred broccolini. Overall, it's one darn fine quiche.