Spinach Risotto

We bought a beautiful cookbook called French, by Damien Pignolet, the idea being that this is one of the few cuisines about which we don't have a book. Needless to say, the recipes are very sophisticated --- and time-consuming, but we are very interested in experimenting with the ideas found in this excellent book.

We started with something not very complicated --- but hardly French. The author of the book argues that in certain regions of France, due to the geographical proximity, people do indeed traditionally cook pasta and riso, and hence he includes a chapter on these things.



I am not going to explain how to make a risotto here, and we followed the recipe very loosely. The interesting part of this dish is that we quickly boiled a whole bag of spinach, squeezed out as much water as possible from the leaves, and then pureed them. You are left with a very small amount of very deep-coloured green puree, that is added to the risotto during the final stage, when the riso is almost cooked and one just adds a bit of butter and grated parmesan --- the mantecare stage.

The result is very good and beautiful to look at. Very velvety...