Spinach & poached egg risotto

hooligan, midnight moon, sweet peppers

 

Our menu has changed a lot since we opened back in September.  We lose a dish most often because the season has changed and we can't get a key ingredient any longer of the quality that we need.  Sometimes, we just want to move on to something new, sometimes we just get bored.  My favorite dish these days is our risotto, one of our classics, on the menu since day one, with very few changes.  It's also one of our top sellers.  One night Scott had 17 orders come in all at once.  The risotto part of that is easy, but 17 perfectly poached eggs at the same time is no small feat.  

The ingredients are simple. Rice, butter, vegetable stock, fresh spinach (currently from the greenhouses of our friends at Visser Farms), two excellent cheeses, midnight moon and hooligan, a poached egg, and a sweet pepper relish. 

I have to tell you a little bit about those cheeses because they are a big part of why I love this so much.  Midnight moon is made by Cypress Grove from Humboldt County in California.  It's a slightly aged goat cheese that is the hands-down favorite among our servers.  Which is probably why it is also our best seller from the charcuterie and cheese menu.  It's mild, smooth, and nutty, reminiscent of parmigiano but not as powerful. 

The aggressive cheese in this mix is Cato Corners' Hooligan.  Hooligan is a stinky and flavorful washed rind cheese produced by a mother-son team on a 40-cow dairy in Connecticut.  It's intense and has scared away more than a few timid tasters, but it  is mellowed out in the risotto.  It's the tuba in this orchestra, unmistakable on its own but it blends in so well that you don't know it's there unless you look for it.

 

I don't know where Matt got the idea to put a poached egg on top of risotto,  but now that I've had it I don't ever want to make any kind of risotto without an egg on top.  I love breaking open the yolk and mixing it in to the rice, it adds that extra bit of richness that makes this so satisfying to my mouth, and stomach, and soul. 

The egg is topped with sweet pepper relish.  We buy fresh red, yellow, orange, and even, sometimes, ivory peppers.  Roast them, peel them, chop them, cook them with herbs, make them even more delicious. 

This is the dish I always want at the end of the night when I'm tired and hungry.  It's comforting and restorative.  It's a culinary Snuggie.

So many tortured metaphors in support of one simple $11 dish.