Asparagus, Rice and Pancetta Soup
I am totally going through an asparagus phase at the moment. Every market I go to, they’re selling beautifully fresh, plump asparagus. Who am I to refuse these little beauties?
This soup was adapted from Skye Gyngell’s My Favourite Ingredients, which is really a beautiful cookbook. She writes cookbooks like she writes poetry. It’s great. As Skye said, this recipe is more like a wet, sloppy risotto rather than a soup. It is substantial for dinner.
Hearty Soup for 2:
- 8 fat asparagus, tough parts peeled back and chopped into 3 cm pieces
- 1.5 cups of risotto rice
- 1 spanish onion, finely chopped
- 3 slices of mild pancetta (about 80g), chopped
- 1 clove of garlic, finely chopped
- 3 sprigs of fresh thyme, leaves picked
- 5 fresh sage leaves, chopped
- 2 slices of dried porcini or 2 dried shittake mushrooms
- 750 ml of hot water + 1/2 cube of Massel vegetable stock + 1 tsp of Vegeta Gourmet stock*
- a pinch of salt and pepper
- parmesan, shaved to serve
Heat up 1 tbsp of olive oil and slowly fry off the onion, pancetta, sage and thyme for about 10 minutes on low heat until the onion turns clear and translucent. Add salt, rice and garlic and fry until the rice is too hot to touch. Add the stock and dried mushrooms and bring to boil. Reduce the heat and simmer for about 20 minutes. Add asparagus and bring back to boil for another 2 minutes. Turn off the heat.
Serve with freshly cracked pepper and shaved parmasan.
* Or use whatever light (vegetable/chicken) stock you have. I rarely do my own stock but I have started a freezer bag of off cut vegetables so once that’s full I might do up a batch of fresh stock.
Nice soup. So fresh, perfect for spring time!
Ellie
4 Nov 09 at 11:42 am
im in love with asparagus <3
Kat @ Spatula, Spoon and Saturday
4 Nov 09 at 4:29 pm
Interesting recipe. Never thought of using whole pieces of asparagus in a soup. I love the whole sloppy risotto thing, that would be a nice meal on a chilly night!
Maria@TheGourmetChallenge
5 Nov 09 at 8:49 am
i looked at a few asparagus soup recipe but none of them appealed to me because it requires killing the asparagus!
Kat @ Spatula, Spoon and Saturday
5 Nov 09 at 7:45 pm
Hey Kat!
I’m so going to try this next week. I do have a question – with the stock, you’ve specified both Massel and Vegeta. Is there a reason? I’m only *just* finding my feet in the kitchen so was curious. I actually really like Massel so will probably only use that, though I know my mum prefers Vegeta (which I find too salty).
Gem
20 Oct 10 at 7:23 pm
hey gem, tonight i just used vegeta and that turned out good. i like the combo of massel + vegeta + dried shrooms, i find that as far as powdered stock goes the combo works really. i didn’t have any mushrooms tonight either. and my sage hasn’t grown out yet (maybe it has died) so give it a go with massel and see what you think of it. vegeta is definitely salty but i guess thats why i like it.
Kat
20 Oct 10 at 7:28 pm
[...] I have Twitterer foodie types to remind me what’s in season and the like, just like this food blogger did. I might have left mine too long and ended up with asparagus risotto with hints of pancetta [...]
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