But I don’t want to oversell it. Just try it for yourself. I recommend the barleywines that Sprecher and Anchor and Nøgne put out, which are more American than British in style, but not murderously bitter and boozy like some American barleywines (Rogue and Sierra Nevada, I’m looking in your direction).

Anyway, I wanted to make a risotto celebrating this pairing… but I couldn’t find any Stilton at Aeon on Sunday. I substituted Gorgonzola and Cheddar, which worked well, and for the beer I chose Daisen G Beer‘s 2006 barleywine, which at almost two years old was quite malty and sweet – perfect for cooking. Also, I meant to use pearl barley in place of some of the rice but I forgot. Oh well. It was still damn tasty.

Barleywine and Gorgonzola Risotto

about 1/4 cup walnuts, toasted and roughly chopped
3/4 apple, peeled and diced
1/4 teaspoon ground bay leaf
about 1/3 teaspoon fennel seeds
1/2 onion, chopped
2 cloves garlic, chopped
about 1 cup short-grain rice (up to 1/2 cup can be replaced with pearl barley)
about 1/8 pound bacon or pancetta, cut into small cubes
about 5 cups beef stock
2 tablespoons malt vinegar
1/2 cup English-style barleywine
1/3 cup Gorgonzola cheese, crumbled
1/2 cup Cheddar cheese, shredded
olive oil, for sautéing
salt, to taste
pepper, to taste

1. Heat olive oil over medium-high heat. Add bacon and sauté to render fat until it begins to lightly brown.
2. Add onions, garlic, fennel seeds, salt and pepper. Sauté until onions are soft and translucent.
3. Increase heat and add rice. Stirring often, toast rice until it turns white and opaque.
4. Add vinegar and reduce heat to medium. Cook off vinegar, then add a ladleful of stock and cook, stirring often. When most of the liquid has evaporated or been absorbed, add more stock and continue stirring. Repeat this step several times until rice has nearly finished cooking.
5. About ten minutes into cooking, stir in walnuts.
6. Once rice is almost al dente, add ground bay leaf and barleywine, increase heat and cook off liquid.
7. Add cheeses and stir until completely melted.
8. Finally, add apples and combine well. Serve with additional freshly ground black pepper.

Free glutamates are responsible for umami, the basic taste I have previously discussed here. My goal for tonight’s risotto was to make the most umami-saturated, savory, salty, meaty (yet meatless) and satisfying risotto ever. To this end I employed tomatoes (with 140 milligrams of free glutamates per 100 grams), shōyu, (782 milligrams), Parmesan cheese (1200 milligrams), and of course, Marmite (1960 milligrams). I also used one of the most umami fungi in the forest, porcini mushrooms, along with the juice you get when you rehydrate them – which I have been saving in the freezer for months for a special occasion. I also threw in a splash of the black tea I was drinking (black is the most umami of teas thanks to its fermentation) on a whim.

When I cook, I think of umami as a foundation; a sturdy basement upon which to build a solid home out of other, more up-front flavors. Today I built my home out of garlic, in three forms: sautéed, fried, and roasted. The result was a garlicky-but-not-too-garlicky, sweet and tangy risotto with a deep, subtle stew-like quality punctuated by the lively textures of porcinis and whole tomatoes. Please enjoy.

Triple Garlic Umami Risotto

about 3/4 cup short-grain white rice
about 4 cups liquid reserved from rehydrating dried porcini mushrooms
about 1 1/4 cup beef stock (substitute vegetable stock for a vegetarian version)
1 bulb garlic
2 cloves garlic, sliced
4 cloves garlic, minced
1 large shallot, minced
about 12 cherry tomatoes
1 handful dried porcini mushrooms, rehydrated
about 1 cup freshly grated Parmigiano-Reggiano cheese
2 tablespoons Marmite
2 tablespoons malt vinegar
1 tablespoon soy sauce
2 tablespoons black tea
ground white pepper, to taste
salt, to taste
about 3 tablespoons olive oil

1. Roast tomatoes, whole, using your preferred method of roasting. Remove and discard skin and reserve juice.
2. Cut the top off the bulb of garlic, exposing the cloves. Drizzle or brush with olive oil and salt lightly, then roast for about 20 minutes in a 400ºF oven, or until cloves are soft and lightly browned. Let cool and squeeze cloves out of the bulb and set aside.
3. In a medium stock pan, combine porcini liquid, stock, and juice from roast tomatoes. Salt to taste.
4. Heat about two tablespoons olive oil in a deep frying pan over medium heat. Add sliced garlic and cook until brown and crisp. Remove from oil, drain on paper towel, and reserve.
5. Reheat oil. Sauté minced garlic and shallots with salt and white pepper until shallots are just translucent. Add rice to the pan and stir well to coat with oil. Increase heat and keep stirring to toast rice.
6. When rice turns opaque, add malt vinegar and soy sauce, then reduce heat back to medium.
7. Add a ladleful of stock and cook, stirring often. When most of the liquid has evaporated or been absorbed, add more stock and continue stirring. Repeat this step several times until rice has nearly finished cooking.
8. Add roasted tomatoes, mushrooms, whole roasted garlic cloves, and tea and cook until liquid is mostly gone.
9. Add cheese, Marmite, and a small amount of olive oil. Stir to melt cheese evenly. Garnish with fried garlic chips and serve immediately.

The first pays tribute to various meibutsu (local specialties) from my home state of Wisconsin; namely, wild rice, cranberries, beer, butter, and cheese. Please enjoy the creamy tang of real Wisconsin-made aged Cheddar and young Colby bound together with rustic wild rice and a light burst of cranberry sweetness. I made this for my extended family, so the recipe here is good for about nine people as opposed to the usual two.

Risotto of Wisconsin Meibutsu

2 cups Arborio rice (uncooked)
about 1 1/2 cups wild rice (cooked)
about 3/4 cup dried unflavored cranberries, chopped
about 1/2 onion, finely chopped
about 1 cup Hefeweizen (substitute dry white wine)
about 6 cups chicken stock
about 1 cup shredded Colby and aged Cheddar cheeses
about 2 tablespoons butter
salt
pepper

1. Heat about 1 1/2 tablespoons butter over medium heat in a deep frying pan. Add onions with pepper and sauté until soft and lightly browned.
2. Add Arborio rice to the pan and stir well to coat with butter. Increase heat and keep stirring to toast rice.
3. When rice starts to turn opaque, add about 1/4 cup beer to deglaze. Cook off liquid, then reduce heat back to medium.
4. Add a ladleful of stock, and cook, stirring often. When the rice has absorbed most of the liquid, add more stock and continue stirring. Repeat this step several times until rice has finished cooking.
5. After about 20 minutes, add the chopped cranberries and stir.
6. When rice is almost al dente, add cooked wild rice and a ladleful of stock, stir, and cook off liquid.
7. Finally, add cheese, remaining beer and butter, and cook until smooth and creamy. Salt to taste and serve immediately.

The second risotto was conceived as a somewhat non-traditional entry to the traditional Thanksgiving dinner. It is meant to blend well with the rest of the many, many other dishes served, in keeping with the “pile it on” Turkey Day mentality (i.e., you can put gravy and/or cranberry sauce on it and it won’t taste nasty), but it should also do well as a robust standalone dish with a pleasant autumnal flavor and the creamy tang of Gorgonzola.

Sage-Acorn Squash Risotto with Pancetta

2 cups Arborio rice
about 1 1/2 tablespoons butter
about 6 cups chicken stock
about 1/2 cup dry white wine
2 ounces pancetta
1 acorn squash or small pumpkin, seeded, peeled, and cubed
about 1 ounce fresh sage, chopped or torn
1/4 cup Gorgonzola cheese, crumbled
1/4 cup Marscapone cheese
ground cinnamon
salt
pepper

1. Heat butter over medium heat in a deep frying pan. Add Arborio rice to the pan and stir well to coat with butter. Increase heat and keep stirring to toast rice.
2. When rice starts to turn opaque, add about 1/4 cup wine to deglaze. Cook off liquid, then reduce heat back to medium.
3. Add cubed squash, pepper and ladleful of stock, and cook, stirring often. When the rice has absorbed most of the liquid, add more stock and continue stirring. Repeat this step several times until rice has finished cooking.
4. When rice is nearly al dente, add sage and cinnamon and a ladleful of stock, stir, and cook off liquid.
5. Add cheese, remaining wine, and cook until smooth and creamy. Salt and pepper to taste and serve immediately.

The third and final risotto was an experiment based on a classic beer and cheese pairing: saison, the classic farmer’s ale from Wallonia, and Camembert, from the nearby Normandy region of France. Actually, in this case, both beer and cheese are from California – Le Merle from Fort Bragg, and Rouge et Noir from Petaluma. At any rate, you’re going to want to use a fairly robust Camembert (i.e., nothing Japanese), but nothing too expensive because many of the funkier subtleties of the cheese won’t survive melting. This risotto is a white wedding of fruity and buttery, spicy and earthy, tangy and fungal, offset by a tasteful green bouquet of basil and mint.

For a more Normandy-centric version, add some seafood and use cider and/or Calvados in place of the saison.

Saison and Camembert Risotto

3/4 cup short-grain rice
about 1 1/2 tablespoons butter
1/4 cup apple vinegar
about 6 cups vegetable stock
1/4 onion, minced
1 clove garlic, minced
about 100 grams Camembert cheese
about 3/4 cup saison
about 1/8 cup pine nuts, toasted
fresh flat-leaf parsely
fresh basil
scallions, chopped
salt
pepper

1. Heat butter over medium heat in a deep frying pan. Add garlic and onions and pepper and cook until brown.
2. Add Arborio rice to the pan and stir well to coat with butter. Increase heat and keep stirring to toast rice.
3. When rice starts to turn opaque, add vinegar to deglaze. Cook off liquid, then reduce heat back to medium.
4. Add a ladleful of stock and cook, stirring often. When the rice has absorbed most of the liquid, add more stock and continue stirring. Repeat this step several times until rice has finished cooking.
5. When rice is nearly al dente, scallions, and pine nuts, and a ladleful of stock, stir, and cook off liquid.
6. Add cheese, herbs, and saison, and cook until smooth and creamy. Salt and pepper to taste and serve immediately.

Almost everything I cook is a bit of an experiment, but this dish combined two rather risky things I’ve never tried to do before: 1) making a risotto with beer, and 2) making a dessert risotto. But can you really go wrong with anything involving a sweet lambic, a malty stout, very dark dark chocolate and very creamy cream cheese? I think not, and this intensely chocolatey risotto is proof.

Chocolate Blackcurrant Beer Risotto Pudding

about 4 walnuts, chopped and toasted
1/2 cup short-grain rice
1/2 cup pearl barley
2 tablespoons butter
about 4 cups milk
11 ounces Lindemans Cassis lambic
about 1 cup Guinness Draught stout
about 1/2 cup dark chocolate, chopped
4 tablespoons Crème de Cassis
3 tablespoons room-temperature cream cheese, whipped

1. In a deep, non-stick frying pan, heat butter over medium heat. In a separate saucepan, heat milk to a bare simmer and keep hot.
2. Add rice and barley and stir well to coat with butter. Increase heat and keep stirring to toast the grains.
3. When rice starts to turn opaque, reduce heat, add a ladleful of milk, and cook, stirring often. When the grains have absorbed most of the liquid, add more milk. Repeat until milk is gone.
4. Quickly heat lambic in the empty saucepan, then add it to rice ladleful by ladleful and cook until rice is nearly al dente.
5. Mix stout and Crème de Cassis in the saucepan and heat. Add to rice and finish cooking.
6. Add chocolate, cheese, and an additional splash of stout, and stir to combine until homogeneous. Serve hot topped with walnuts.

This momentous first risotto is a combination of fragrant saffron, luscious seafood, and vibrant baby asparagus entwined in rich, creamy Manchego. Special thanks goes to the country of Spain for the idea behind this Paella-Inspired Seafood-Asparagus Risotto.

3/4 cup Arborio or Japanese rice
about 4 cups hot vegetable, seafood, or chicken stock
1 cup white wine
meat from 2 king crab legs
4-5 large scallops
1/2 teaspoon saffron threads
2 cloves garlic, crushed and minced
juice of 1/2 lemon
1/3 cup grated Manchego cheese
15 stalks baby asparagus, cut into thirds
olive oil
salt
pepper

1. Heat plenty of olive oil (about three tablespoons) in a frying pan over medium-high heat.
2. Once oil is hot, place scallops in pan and sear on both sides, then remove from oil and set aside.
3. Lower heat to medium and add garlic. Salt and pepper well and sauté until lightly browned.
4. Add rice and stir well to coat with oil. Cook for about 4-5 minutes, stirring constantly, to toast rice.
5. Add about 3/4 cup wine to deglaze. Stir into rice well and cook until most of the liquid has been absorbed/evaporated, then add saffron.
6. Add a ladleful of stock to the pan and cook until most of the liquid is gone, stirring thoroughly.
7. Repeat step 6 until rice is nearly cooked through. Add asparagus and crab along with more stock and cook until rice and asparagus are both al dente.
8. When the last of the liquid is finally absorbed, add remaining 1/4 cup wine and cheese. Stir and cook until thick and creamy.
9. Serve in a shallow bowl with seared scallops and a spritz of lemon juice.