Climbing Mount Risotto
Hiking in the Apennine Mountains + Risotto with Pancetta and Spring Onions
We stumbled up the cypress lined driveway of the Tuscan bed and breakfast, legs wobbly and mouths parched. In the previous six hours, my husband and I had covered 22 kilometers of the Via degli Dei trail in the Apennines mountains of Italy – a path first established by the Etruscans over 2000 years ago and now an opportunity for intrepid hikers to travel from Bologna to Florence on foot. Thanks to a faulty water pump, we had run out of water an hour earlier. Now we were thirsty and ready for dinner.
It was late March, the start of the hiking season, and our third full day on the trail. What we gained in early season quietude, we lost in access to amenities. There was birdsong and spring flowers pushing through the soggy undergrowth, but there was no quaint mountaintop rifugio to pop into for a plate of pasta and an espresso. Lunch was handfuls of nuts and beef jerky as we walked. We might see ten people in a whole day. There was more than once I considered that with this trek, we might have bitten off more than we could chew.
When we booked the trip two months earlier, the tour operator, Appennino Slow, had promised us that this inn had excellent food. If it didn’t, we would have to make do with cashews scavenged from the bottom of our packs – there was nowhere else to eat for kilometers, and I certainly wasn’t walking a step further than I had to that night.
As we handed over our passports to the young innkeeper, delicious smells wafted from the kitchen where pots gently clanged in dinner prep. A loud grumble rocked my insides. John asked what was on the menu.
“Risotto,” the charming young inn keeper replied. “With bacon and onions.” Hmmm… bacon and onion rice. Sounded like a casserole from a manual for a 1950’s housewife. Then again, this was Italy where even the simplest plate of spaghetti could leave me speechless. I was willing to give bacon and onions a chance.
John made a face. He loved risotto. It was one of his signature dishes to cook at home. But rice was not going to be enough after a day like ours. He explained to the innkeeper, miming hiking while enunciating “22 kilometers”, “500 meters elevation”, “no lunch”. The innkeeper nodded. “Si, ho capito.” The innkeeper had seen enough hikers pass through to know where we were coming from.
“Will steak be okay?” Ah yes, that would do. “And we do the risotto to start.” We both sighed in relief. A small portion of risotto before a plate of tagliata. My belly was filling just thinking of it.
Retreating to our room, we luxuriated in hot showers and a nap under a thick duvet. Two hours later we returned to the main building and settled into the dining room with two glasses of the very good house Vermentino. When the risotto arrived, it was no typical Italian small primi piatti - it looked as if it were vying to be the newest mountain in the Apennine range. Clearly our message of being hungry had been received.
The perfectly tender grains of rice were threaded with green ribbons of sweet spring onions. The bacon? Hefty lardons of crisp pancetta erupting from the peak of Monte Risotto. I wasn’t sure how I was going to eat all of that and the steak, but I was willing to try.
I was scraping the last grains of creamy rice from the plate when the tagliata was delivered. I did my best with the thick slices, pink in the middle and charred on the outside, knowing that our final day of hiking still lay ahead, and I would need the calories. I didn’t know we would get lost the next day, that our phones would run out of batteries just when we got in range to call for a taxi, that we would miss a train to Rome and not get to our hotel until 9pm. In that moment, as I let the innkeeper pour another glass of wine, I only knew the pleasure of Italian hospitality and the satisfaction of a happy stomach.
Recipe
Pancetta Primavera Risotto or Risotto with Bacon, Onions and Peas
Serves 4 hungry adults or 6 as a first course
6 cups chicken broth
1 T. olive oil
4 oz. pancetta, cut in thick batons or diced
1 cup thinly slice spring onions* or the white part of two leeks
1 garlic clove, minced
1 ½ cup arborio rice
¾ cup white wine
½ cup shelled peas, fresh or frozen
1 T. butter
½ cup grated Parmesan cheese plus more for serving
1 cup grape cherry tomatoes, quartered
2 T. basil, chiffonade plus reserved leaves to serve
White pepper
Salt
Bring chicken broth to a boil in a medium pot then reduce to a simmer. Cover with a lid and keep warm until ready to start adding to the rice.
In a large pot, sauté the pancetta in the olive oil over medium heat, until fat is rendered and it is browned all over, about 5 minutes. Remove the pancetta with a slotted spoon and let drain on a paper towel. At least two tablespoons of oil should remain in the pan. If not, add more oil. Add onion or leek and sauté for five minutes until softened. Add garlic and sauté for another two minutes until softened but not browned, stirring often. Add rice and sauté for two minutes until the grains absorb the oil and have begun to toast slightly. Add the wine and stir until wine is mostly absorbed. Reduce heat to medium-low. Add the first half cup of chicken stock along with the peas. Stir often. Continue to add warm stock a half cup at a time until rice grains are tender but not mush, about 20 minutes. It is important to stir often as this is what develops the natural creaminess of risotto from the starch on the grain. At the end, turn heat down to low and stir in butter and cheese. Fold in tomatoes and basil. Taste and add salt and white pepper (black okay too) until seasoned according to your taste. To serve, spoon a generous portion into a warmed bowl and top with a healthy pile of pancetta. May add extra parmesan cheese and reserved basil leaves for garnish.
*You can find true spring onions (an immature full onion, sweet with a small bulb below the green stalk - different from the green onions or scallions) in farmers markets from early spring to early summer
To Drink…
To pair with the risotto, think of a dry Vouvray or Assyrtiko to take on the grassy notes from the peas and sweet spring onions. To stand up to the meaty notes from the pancetta, you might look for a white with a bit more body, like a Bordeaux or Rioja. Check out the Spring Wine Guide for more tasting notes and where to buy.
If you have a minute…
Read a good news story out of San Diego. Kitchens for Good is helping people the unhoused, people with mental illness and criminal records to gain culinary skills and a path to a career in hospitality.
Watch Juliette Binoche tenderly baste a fish. The Taste of Things is the most gorgeously shot food movie I’ve seen. It is also a story of many passions: food, love and friendship.
Since we are in NBA playoff season, now was a fun time to read this article from a few years back, Inside the NBA’s Unofficial Wine Club. For anyone trying to convince their boss that wine tasting should be a team building exercise on your next offsite, send this link.