Risotto with Mascarpone, Fontina and Grilled Asparagus

For Risotto you will need Arborio or Carnaroli rice,  chicken stock, white wine, Fontina cheese, mascarpone, an onion and a shallot.

**Note:  my daughter told me that she has used Calrose rice when she didn’t have any Arborio rice.  She said that the results were the same.  Soooo……if all else fails and you can’t find the Italian short grain you could give the Calrose a shot.

First of all you need to get your chicken stock hot.  Pour 8 cups into a large pot and bring to a simmer.  After the broth comes to a simmer, reduce to low.  You want to keep the stock hot at all times during the cooking process.

Remove the red wax from the outside of the fontina cheese and discard the red stuff.

Grate the cheese and set aside.

My onion was pretty large, so I will only need half of it.  You want to chop the onion pretty fine.

Start by making slices in the onion.

Cut the opposite direction to create a small dice.

You will need one cup of chopped onions.  Set the onions aside.

Chop the shallot.

Using the same method as with the onion.  Slice the shallot.

Then cut in the opposite direction to create a small dice.

You will need 2 tablespoons of the chopped shallot.

Heat three tablespoons of extra virgin olive oil in a large pot.

Add the onions.

And the shallots.

Cook the onions and shallots until they begin to turn golden.

After the onions and shallots have slightly turned golden…

…add the rice to the pan.

Stir to coat the rice with oil and continue to cook for about 2 minutes to toast the rice until the edges become translucent.

Pour in 1/2 cup white wine.

Stir well until the wine has evaporated.

Add the chicken broth 1/2 cup at a time to the rice mixture.

The hot broth should continue to simmer as you pour it into the rice mixture.

Continue the simmer and stir until the broth has evaporated and you can see that the bottom of the pan has no or little liquid.

Continue to keep stirring as the rice simmers.

I check the texture of the rice after about 15 minutes of adding broth and stirring.  I want the rice to have a bit of a bite to it.  You don’t want it to be chalky.

The risotto is getting close to being done so I’m going to hurry and grill some asparagus to stir in.

I want to add something to my risotto.  I have some gorgeous thin asparagus.

I broke off the ends and now I’m drizzling a little extra virgin olive oil on the asparagus.

Rub the olive oil all over the asparagus.

I’m going to grill the asparagus on my cook top using a preheated grill/griddle.

Sprinkle with a little salt and pepper.

As you can see the risotto is getting creamier.  I’ll check the rice once again.  If it is still hard, continue to add broth and stir.

Now I add the richness.

Stir in 8 ounces of mascarpone cheese.

The mascarpone will immediately begin to melt into the risotto.

I’m sure you have noticed that my risotto is close to the top of the pan.  Ugh…I thought that I would use a shallow pan for photo purposes.  I should have used a big pot like I normally do.  It would have been easier to stir at this point.  Oh well it’s working.

Remember the fontina cheese we grated earlier?   Time to add it!

I like to put in about 1 1/2 cups of fontina.

Stir until the fontina melts.

Because the cheese has a tendency to be a bit salty, I wait to salt the risotto.  I don’t want to add too much salt at the beginning for this reason.

I think the risotto needs about 1/2 teaspoon of salt.