Morel Mushroom Risotto
And a cardboard crate of a pantry lugged around the South of France
Hello from a little village in south-central France called Ailhon.
I’ve unexpectedly spent almost a month in France now, hopping between bigger cities in the sweaty south and smaller towns a bit further up north. Along for the ride have been my now three wheeled suitcase and a cardboard crate filled with miscellaneous pantry items accumulated along the way. French olive oil, Banyuls vinegar, baby onions and garlic, dried mushrooms, anchovies, lentils, honey, and SO much rice - a bounty ensured by my proximity to the Camargue, a coastal regional of southern France known for its pink flamingos, wild white horses, sea salt, and of course, its superior rice. Every little grocery store here is stocked with the stuff - black rice, red rice, brown rice, short-grain, long-grain, even rice cakes.
Cooking while traveling demands restraint and resourcefulness and a willingness to laugh it off - strange kitchens, janky tools, inevitable mishaps, itinerant timelines that make accumulating more than exactly what you need excessive. Fortunately, a good, simple meal is only ever reliant on good, simple ingredients, and even a dull knife and a cheap, aluminum pot can help to coax the disparate parts you’ve collected into a luxurious whole. And when it comes to a reliable place to start, a bag of rice is great insurance for any unsure beginning.
Morel Mushroom Risotto
No dish I’ve cooked on this trip embodies a truer spirit of making good use of a well stocked cardboard crate of a pantry than this risotto: there’s the glut of rice, the alliums, the expiring butter who needed to travel 5 hours north without refrigeration turned shelf-stable ghee, the herbs (bay, rosemary, sage, thyme) pilfered from the streets of Arles, and the dried morels - who offer so much of themselves to this dish; their dense, nutty meat, but also an instantly flavorful broth after indulging in a good, long rehydrating soak.
