Parmesan Black Truffle Risotto

Better this week. Not great, but better, and better is enough. I slept five hours on Tuesday night, which felt like a vacation. The trick — if you can call it a trick, if you can call anything about insomnia a trick — is exhaustion. I worked twelve-hour days Monday through Thursday, came home so tired my bones ached, ate whatever Danielle had on the stove, and fell asleep on the couch before 9 PM. It's not healthy. It's not sustainable. But it's sleeping, and sleeping is the goal, and I'll figure out the healthy part later.

Finished the Spanish Town house on Wednesday. Mark and Sarah were thrilled — every light works, every outlet is grounded, the panel is new and labeled and the kind of clean that makes electricians proud and homeowners say "I don't know what I'm looking at but it's nice." I charged them fair. They wrote me a check and Sarah hugged me, which — I'm not a hugger, generally, I'm a handshake man, but she was so happy that I allowed it. Danielle would say I should be hugged more often. Danielle is probably right.

Saturday was the first hint of crawfish season. Too early for a boil — the mudbugs are still small, still expensive, still not worth the seasoning — but Tony's had a sign up: FIRST CRAWFISH OF 2017. I stopped and looked at those crawfish the way some men look at sports cars: with longing, with anticipation, with the knowledge that the thing you want is coming and the wait is almost over. Give it six weeks. By early March, the crawfish will be fat and the water will be warm and the boiling pots will fire up across Louisiana like signal beacons, and the spring will be here, and the insomnia will have something to compete with.

Made a roast — a pot roast, Cajun-style, which means: chuck roast seared in a Dutch oven, then braised with onion, garlic, bell pepper, celery, potatoes, and carrots, in beef stock with a dark roux stirred in. Yes, even the pot roast gets a roux. Everything gets a roux. If I could roux my morning coffee, I would. The roast cooked for four hours at 300 degrees, and by the time I pulled it out, the meat was falling apart and the gravy was thick and dark and the potatoes had absorbed the roux and become something transcendent — something that's technically a potato but spiritually a Cajun experience.

The kids devoured it. Luc is in a growth spurt — he ate an adult-sized plate and asked for more, and I looked at him across the table and thought: when did you get this big? When did your feet get that size? When did your voice start changing? Time, cher. Time is the thing you can't slow down, not even with a forty-five-minute roux. It just moves. And the boy across the table isn't the baby I held in Houma in 2006 anymore. He's becoming something else. Something taller and louder and closer to the man he'll be. And I'm watching it happen, one pot roast at a time.

The pot roast got its four hours and fed every soul in this house, but a man who’ll stand over a Dutch oven for the better part of an afternoon is the same man who’ll stand over a risotto and stir. It’s the same patience, the same faith that the time you put in will come back to you on the plate. This Parmesan Black Truffle Risotto is what I reach for when I want that same slow, deliberate comfort — something that asks something of you in the kitchen, and pays you back with interest. Luc will eat two bowls of this one, too.

Prep Time: 10 minutes | Cook Time: 35 minutes | Total Time: 45 minutes | Servings: 4

Ingredients

1 1/2 cups Arborio rice
5 cups low-sodium chicken or vegetable stock, kept warm
3 tablespoons unsalted butter, divided
2 tablespoons olive oil
1 medium yellow onion, finely diced
3 cloves garlic, minced
1/2 cup dry white wine
1 cup freshly grated Parmesan cheese, plus more for serving
1 1/2 tablespoons black truffle oil
1 oz black truffle, shaved or finely grated (or 2 teaspoons black truffle paste)
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 stock. Pour the chicken or vegetable stock into a medium saucepan and set it over low heat. Keep it at a bare simmer throughout cooking — adding cold stock to the rice will slow the process and affect the texture.
Sauté the aromatics. In a large, heavy-bottomed pot or Dutch oven, heat 2 tablespoons of butter with the olive oil over medium heat. Add the diced onion and cook, stirring occasionally, until softened 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 it in the butter and oil. Toast for 2 minutes, stirring constantly, until the edges of the grains turn slightly translucent. The rice should smell faintly nutty.
Deglaze with wine. Pour in the white wine and stir until fully absorbed, about 2 minutes. This is where the richness starts.
Add stock, ladle by ladle. Begin adding the warm stock one ladle (about 1/2 cup) at a time, stirring frequently and waiting until each addition is nearly fully absorbed before adding the next. Continue this process for 22—28 minutes, until the rice is al dente — tender with a slight bite at the center, and the mixture is creamy and loose.
Finish with truffle and Parmesan. Remove the pot from heat. Stir in the remaining 1 tablespoon of butter, the grated Parmesan, truffle oil, and shaved or grated black truffle. Stir vigorously for 1 minute to emulsify the fat into the rice and build the final creaminess. Season with salt and pepper to taste.
Rest and serve. Let the risotto sit uncovered for 2 minutes — it will continue to thicken slightly. Spoon into warmed bowls, top with additional Parmesan, a few shavings of truffle if you have them, and a scatter of fresh parsley. Serve immediately.

Nutrition (per serving)

Parmesan Black Truffle Risotto — The Kind of Slow Cook That Makes You Feel Like Yourself Again