Recipe #3 in my new vegitalian series
This is not the traditional recipe for risi e bisi (Venetian rice and peas). You will find that in my post here and there’s another version here. This is the version that my mother cooked for me when I was a kid. She, in turn, had learned it from my Venetian grandmother. So this is certainly a version that Venetian women who learned to cook in the 1920s made in the 1950s.
I’m including this version of risi e bisi for several reasons. Firstly, it’s takes less time than the original and doesn’t involve stirring a pot of rice, without interruption, for twenty minutes meaning you can’t do anything else. Secondly, it’s a lighter dish which includes no oil, no butter, in fact no fat at all apart from a small amount of cheese added at the end. You could even make it without the cheese if you wish. Thirdly, it’s delicious. The combination of rice and peas is a classic one that you find in many dishes around the world, and is a remarkable marriage of ingredients that go together. Whoever was the first person to combine the two deserves a statue.
Finally, for me, this is the taste of childhood. It’s the very epitome of comfort food and that’s something important to keep us going in these difficult times.
A few final notes: if you are not strictly vegetarian, you should use parmigiano reggiano cheese for this. If you are, you should use a vegetarian equivalent (i.e. one made with non-animal rennet) of which there are many available now. You can also jazz this dish up a little—even if in my mind it’s unnecessary—by caramelizing the peas. If you don’t know how to do this, I will add a little tutorial in the coming days.
200g (7 ounces) Italian rice (arborio, carnaroli, etc) 200g (7 ounces) fresh or frozen peas 1/2 teaspoon fresh or dried mint (chopped) salt vegetarian parmesan-style cheese pepper To adapt this recipe for more people allow 100g (7 ounces) of rice and 100g (7 ounces) of peas per person. For every 100g (7 ounces) of rice add 1/2 litre (1 pint) cooking water and 1/2 a teaspoon of rock salt.
Ingredients
Instructions