Lemon Risotto with Broccoli

The week began the way the weeks begin now: coffee at 5:30 AM in the dark kitchen, Sven at my feet, the lake beginning to show itself through the window as the gray of pre-dawn turned into the gray of full dawn. The silence is no longer the silence I feared. The silence is the architecture of a life I am still learning to live in. I have lived in this house for thirty-seven years. The first thirty-two of them, Paul lived here too. The last five, he has not. The math gets clearer every year and the meaning gets harder. Mamma called Tuesday. Her voice was small but her mind was sharp. She wanted to talk about Pappa, of all people. About the time he fixed her bicycle in 1962. About how he always said "there" when he had finished a job, the same way every time, the small declarative finality. She had not thought of this in years, she said. The memory came to her in the kitchen, while she was peeling an apple. I listened. I did not interrupt. The memory was unprovoked and total. The memory is everything. Erik came over Sunday. He chopped wood for me without being asked — the pile by the back door was getting low, and Erik had noticed, and Erik had brought his ax, and Erik had spent forty-five minutes splitting and stacking and not making a single comment about how the wood needed to be done. He drank coffee. He left. The whole visit was forty-five minutes. It was perfect. Erik is a perfect brother in the specific way of Scandinavian brothers — silent, useful, present. I cooked Wild rice soup this week. Wild rice from the Fond du Lac band, sold at the co-op in fifty-pound bags, harvested by hand. The rice simmers in chicken stock for forty minutes until the grains split and curl like commas. I add carrots, celery, onion, mushrooms, a sprig of thyme, then cream at the end and a fistful of parsley. The pot makes eight quarts. Half stays in the kitchen. Half goes to the freezer. The Damiano Center on Thursday: wild rice soup, fifty gallons. Gerald helped me ladle. He told me about a regular who got into a sober house this week — a man named Curtis, who has been coming for soup for eight years and who has been sober for forty-three days now. The soup did not get him sober. The soup was there when he was hungry. The soup is the door, again. The door is the chance. I read one of Paul's books in the evening. The Edmund Fitzgerald chapter. I have read it forty times now. The fortieth time is no less affecting than the first. The transmission still gives me a chill: "We are holding our own." Captain McSorley's last known words. The chapter ends with the wreck on the bottom of Lake Superior, and the men still inside, and the lake refusing to give up its dead. Paul read this chapter to me in 1989, on a winter evening, in the living room. I did not know then that he was reading me his own future. It is enough. It has to be. And on a morning like this, with the lake doing what the lake does and the dog at my feet and the bread on the counter and the kitchen warm enough to live in, it is. It is enough.

The wild rice soup goes to the freezer and to the Damiano Center in fifty-gallon batches — it is the generous meal, the civic meal, the one that belongs to everyone. But there is a smaller hunger that lives in the evenings after, when the big pot has been washed and the kitchen is quiet again and Sven is at my feet and I have only myself to feed. That is when I make this lemon risotto with broccoli. It takes patience of a different kind than soup — a ladle at a time, standing at the stove, stirring, which turns out to be exactly the kind of patience a quiet evening in this house knows how to hold. The brightness of the lemon cuts through what autumn accumulates. It is enough.

Prep Time: 15 minutes | Cook Time: 30 minutes | Total Time: 45 minutes | Servings: 4

Ingredients

1 1/2 cups Arborio rice
4 cups low-sodium chicken or vegetable broth, warmed
2 cups broccoli florets, cut small
1/2 cup dry white wine
1 medium yellow onion, finely diced
3 cloves garlic, minced
2 tablespoons olive oil
2 tablespoons unsalted butter, divided
Zest and juice of 1 large lemon
1/2 cup freshly grated Parmesan cheese, plus more to serve
1/2 teaspoon kosher salt, plus more to taste
1/4 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper
2 tablespoons fresh flat-leaf parsley, chopped

Instructions

Warm the broth. Pour broth into a small saucepan and keep it at a gentle simmer over low heat throughout cooking. Cold broth will slow the risotto and tighten the starches unevenly.
Sauté the aromatics. Heat olive oil and 1 tablespoon of butter in a wide, heavy-bottomed pot or Dutch oven over medium heat. Add the onion and cook, stirring occasionally, until soft and translucent, about 5 minutes. Add the garlic and cook 1 minute more.
Toast the rice. Add the Arborio rice to the pot and stir to coat every grain in the oil. Cook for 2 minutes, stirring constantly, until the edges of the grains turn translucent. This step builds the foundation of flavor.
Deglaze with wine. Pour in the white wine and stir steadily until it is fully absorbed, about 2 minutes. The pot will smell sharp and bright; that will mellow.
Add broth, one ladle at a time. Begin adding the warm broth one ladleful (roughly 1/2 cup) at a time, stirring after each addition and waiting until the liquid is nearly fully absorbed before adding the next. Keep the heat at a steady medium-low. Continue for about 18–20 minutes, until the rice is creamy and just tender at the center.
Add the broccoli. Stir in the broccoli florets with the second-to-last addition of broth. Cook until the broccoli is just tender and bright green, about 4–5 minutes, adding the final ladle of broth as needed.
Finish with lemon and cheese. Remove the pot from heat. Stir in the remaining tablespoon of butter, the Parmesan, lemon zest, and lemon juice. The risotto will loosen and turn glossy. Taste and adjust salt and pepper.
Serve immediately. Spoon into warm bowls, scatter with fresh parsley and extra Parmesan if you like. Risotto waits for no one — it is a dish that asks you to be present.

Nutrition (per serving)

Lemon Risotto with Broccoli — What the Kitchen Holds After the Big Pot Goes to the Freezer