Mascarpone: a full-blooded Italian “celebrity”.

Today we’ll hop to Lombardy, in particular in all the territory of the province of Lodi, to discover one of its cheeses: mascarpone.

Famous for being the main ingredient of tiramisù, mascarpone is not used to make sweets only. Actually, it’s not the kind of cheese that in Italy people use to spread on bread, but it’s mostly used for pasta dishes (e.g. pasta with mascarpone sauce and nuts), for meat and fish dishes, savoury tarts, side dishes.

It’s a high-calorie and versatile cheese, and to know how to use it in cooking, let’s learn its characteristics first.

All about Mascarpone

It’s a white and creamy cheese, has a compact consistency and it is made from milk cream and citric acid. Basically, once the cream has been detached from milk through centrifugation, it is cooked at bain-marie at 90° Celsius and then citric acid is added to ferment it.

Few minutes are enough to see the curd, after which it is separated from whey by using closed weave cloth, put in a wooden mold and left in the fridge for 18 hours. Being a very delicate cheese, in the past it was produced during the winter, while today we can all find it throughout the year at the supermarket.

Risotto with Mascarpone and pink pepper

As we said, mascarpone is also used to make salty recipes. The one we recommend you today is both very easy and classy.

Here’s what you need:

• 350 gr white rice;
• 6 gr grains of pink pepper;
• 200 gr mascarpone;
• 800 gr vegetable broth;
• 50 gr spumante wine;
• 1 onion and 1 shallot, peeled;
• 50 gr parmesan, grated;
• 50 gr extra-virgin olive oil;
• 30 gr butter;
• salt to taste.

Prepare the vegetable broth first. In a pot, sauté the pink pepper in the olive oil and, after the oil got all the pepper flavour, filter it directly into the pan where you will cook your risotto.

Use this peppery oil to sauté onion and shallot until golden. Add rice and let it toast for a couple of minutes. Baste it with spumante wine and, once the alcohol evaporated, add broth little by little to cook rice.

Put salt. 5 minutes before rice is cooked, add mascarpone and stir until it is all well melted. Finally, turn off the stove, add butter and parmesan and stir once again until creamy. 

Your risotto is done! 

Tip: decorate with some pink pepper grains.

Sources

agricolis.com - Mascarpone artigianale
giallozafferano.it - Risotto al mascarpone e pepe rosa
All images released under Creative Commons license.