Risi e Bisi

The Doge's springtime Venetian rice and peas, loose and wavy between a soup and a risotto, built on a stock made from the pea pods

Origin: Venice, Italy

From the journey of Pea.

Risi e bisi (rice and peas, in the Venetian dialect) is the great spring dish of Venice, and once its most ceremonial. It was the first course presented to the Doge at the state banquet held each year on the 25th of April, the feast of Saint Mark the Evangelist, patron of the Republic, a dish of springtime offered as a statement of the land's abundance and the city's pride. Its appearance on the Doge's table coincided exactly with the arrival of the first sweet peas of the year from the fertile flatlands around Scorzè and Padua. Risi e bisi sits deliberately between a soup and a risotto. It should be all'onda, 'wavy', loose enough to ripple when the dish is tilted, neither as soupy as a minestra nor as tight as a risotto. The rice and the peas are present in roughly equal spirit (a true risi e bisi has a great many peas, not a scattering), and the genius of the dish is the stock: the discarded pea pods are simmered to make a sweet, intensely pea-flavoured broth in which the rice is then cooked, so that every grain tastes of pea. The dish marries two crops that both came to the Italian plain from Asia and were naturalised there: the ancient pea, a Neolithic founder crop, and rice, introduced to the paddies of the Veronese and Vicentine lowlands in the late Middle Ages and flourishing under Venetian rule. Their union, with a little pancetta, onion, butter, and Parmesan, makes one of the loveliest and most seasonal dishes in the whole Italian repertoire.

Ingredients

Peas

1 kg fresh peas in the pod (to yield about 350 g shelled peas, with the pods reserved for stock)

Rice

320 g Vialone Nano or Carnaroli rice

Base

1 piece small onion, finely chopped
80 g pancetta, finely diced
50 g butter
2 tbsp olive oil

Stock

1.5 l light chicken or vegetable stock (for the pod broth)

Finishing

60 g Parmesan, freshly grated
2 tbsp flat-leaf parsley, chopped

Seasoning

1 tsp salt, or to taste
0.5 tsp freshly ground black pepper

Method

Shell the peas, keeping the pods. Wash the pods well, then simmer them in the stock for 20 to 25 minutes. Blend, then pass through a sieve back into the pan, pressing hard to extract all the sweet juice; discard the fibrous solids. Keep this pea-pod broth at a bare simmer.
In a wide heavy pot, melt half the butter with the olive oil over medium heat. Add the chopped onion and diced pancetta and cook gently for 8 minutes until the onion is soft and the pancetta has rendered.
Add the shelled peas and a ladle of the hot broth, and cook for 5 minutes so the peas begin to soften and flavour the base. (Very young peas can be added later; older, larger ones benefit from this head start.)
Stir in the rice and let it toast for a minute, coated in the fat. Begin adding the hot pea-pod broth a ladle or two at a time, stirring often, letting each addition be absorbed before adding the next, as for a risotto.
Continue for about 16 to 18 minutes, until the rice is tender but al dente and the whole is loose and wavy (all'onda). Add the salt and pepper. It should be soupier than a risotto, so finish with a generous last ladle of broth.
Off the heat, beat in the remaining butter and the grated Parmesan (the mantecatura), and stir in the parsley. Rest for a minute, then serve at once in warm bowls, with more Parmesan at the table.

Notes

Vialone Nano is the traditional Venetian rice and gives the ideal loose, creamy result, but Carnaroli works well. The amount of peas should be generous: this is rice and peas, not rice with a few peas. If you must use frozen peas, use about 350 g and make the broth from good stock with a handful of the peas blended in, since you will have no pods. Pancetta may be omitted for a vegetarian version.

The Gastrographer

Name: Risi e Bisi
Prep time: 20 min
Cook time: 35 min
Total time: 55 min
Yield: 4
Cuisine: Italy
Ingredients: 1 kg fresh peas in the pod (to yield about 350 g shelled peas, with the pods reserved for stock); 320 g Vialone Nano or Carnaroli rice; 1 piece small onion, finely chopped; 80 g pancetta, finely diced; 50 g butter; 2 tbsp olive oil; 1.5 l light chicken or vegetable stock (for the pod broth); 60 g Parmesan, freshly grated; 2 tbsp flat-leaf parsley, chopped; 1 tsp salt, or to taste; 0.5 tsp freshly ground black pepper

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Ingredient originTrade or transit route

Became a culinary stapleColonial / trade control