[A six-course meal concentrate - Asparagus, pea and lemon risotto]

I like to throw dinner parties from time to time and while some manage to produce the most delicate food to feed their hungry friends, I find it somewhat difficult to create a six-course meal effortlessly.
Definitely not the domestic goddess you’d expect to find in me, aren’t I’m right?

Sure, I love to plan elaborate menus, but then, days pass by and I suddenly freak out when finding out that yes, today is the eight of July and that yes it’s the day friends are supposed to be coming over – at least that’s what the embossed invitation cards said.
I can remember birthdays of folks I was in maternelle with, but I can’t remember that I invited friends for dinner. There seems to be a problem somewhere.

Over the years, this flaw of mine has made risotto my NBF (new best friend).
When it comes to dinner parties, risottos have many many many advantages; so many in fact, that it would be useless to list them. But, well, I made clear that I am useless –too – in some ways, so here I go.
First, it can feed a whole lot of starving and on-the-way-to-get-slightly-too-drunk friends for very little effort. Wait, it might sound like I don’t want to put endeavour in the food I cook for the people I cherish the most; I might not be a perfect hostess but I do have my qualities and good food is part of them. This brings us to the second – and very important – advantage of risottos, which is the fact that they’re downright delicious. Well, that’s unless your friends don’t like rice, but then they wouldn’t be your friends, right? I have friends who don’t like coconut or prawns, I even have a friend who hates both, but as long as she likes rice, I’m fine with it. I’m not *that* picky!
The third thing I love about risotto is how versatile it is. Feel bouncy, go for a citrus risotto; more in a cosy mood, a comforting mushroom risotto will do just fine.

So, this might explain why I’ve developed a strong and reliable risotto recipe I could play around. I thought I had the recipe, you know, the one I was going to keep secret for years and then nicely pass down to my great-grand-children. I was proved wrong.
As I was reading Leith’s vegetarian bible and sticking small pieces of paper in between every other page to bookmark recipes I should try (can you believe I retained more than 200 recipes, but that’s another story), I stumble upon a recipe that immediately appealed to me.
Asparagus, pea and lemon risotto.
I first thought I would twist my base recipe to get the same result. This was before I actually started reading the ingredients list. That recipe called for mascarpone cheese – what a brilliant idea. At that exact moment, I got besotted. I had to try it.

Asparagus, pea and lemon risotto
Adapted from Leith’s vegetarian bible (p. 364).

This risotto is one of my latest food discoveries and definitely a keeper. I’m now close to becoming a mascarpone-cheese-in-risottos addict.
More seriously, this dish is everything you want a risotto to be. It’s full of flavours, it’s creamy, it’s a undemanding. In one word, perfect.

I know, that September isn’t exactly the season for asparagus but I had lovely frozen ones, which were hand-picked last May, sitting in my freezer.
I love how the citrusy note, brought by both lemon juice and zest, complements the slight sweetness of asparagus and peas.
I’m not going to talk about what a wonderful addition the mascarpone is, as it could get on the very-long side; but well, if you have to remember obly one thing from this, make it the mascarpone.