Crab and Asparagus Risotto

Friday April 20

Monday's crabcakes (like all our crab recipes) took up half a pound can of crab, so we needed something to do with the other half.  We googled recipes using the search terms "crab" and (you guessed it) "asparagus."  And after all the recipes for Vietnamese soups, we found this.

As Barbara was at home, she threw together the simple broth in a snap, and let it simmer for a couple of hours until Holt arrived.  We halved the recipe, but with only a quarter of an onion, and used the stems as well of the tips of our (local) asparagus.  Maybe if your Italian mother in law were coming over you'd use only the tips, and then she'd yell at you for being wasteful.  And she'd be right.

It took 30 rather than 15 minutes for the rice to be tender (is there some alternate universe where rice and beans take half the time to cook?), but the dish was excellent, conveying the subtle taste of crab unmasked.  And we have lots of broth left over and frozen, so we'll have no trouble doing this again.