Hey people, it's cooking bearkitty  ghostbear2k, bringing you some nice and creamy Risotto.
Yeah, I know, everybody tells you how hard to make it is, how difficult to cook.
Tell you what, they are wrong. The only thing you really need to do is to give the dish at least of an hour of unconditional attention.
If you do that, there isn't much that can go wrong. :3

Risotto con asparagi verdi e pomoridini

At least 600 – 700ml vegetable stock or broth (although every broth works just fine)
100ml dry white wine
1 Tbls Olive oil
50 g butter
1 green onion
1 shallot or 1/2 onion
8 green asparagus spears
8 small cherry tomatoes
1 piece of a celery stick (about 1 finger long)
1 garlic clove
200g Risotto rice
salt, pepper
1 twig thyme, 1 twig rosemary, some fresh basil leafs
2 Tbls Parmigiano, freshly grated

Important:
Prepare everything in advance (Mis en place) and have it ready. During the cooking you won't have the time for it.
Always stir the Risotto carefully. Never stop and use gentle circular motions to loosen the starch from the rice grains.
When it's finished it should be still fluidly, rich and creamy with separate grains, but not watery.
Only use Risotto rice. Normal rice grains don't contain enough starch to gain the creamy texture.

Preparation:
Wash the celery, then trim it and remove the strings.
Peel the green onion, shallot and garlic. Chop the celery, shallot and green onion very finely.
Lightly crush the clove of garlic with the broad side of your kitchen knife.
Wash the cherry tomatoes,cut them in half and remove the green part. Gently remove out the seeds as well. They don't offer much taste and are just watery.
Wash the green asparagus, cut off the woody part and discard it. Now cut of the tips and put them aside for later. Chop the stems into thin slices.

Take your vegetable stock or broth, heat it up and keep it very hot.
Melt about 25-30g of the butter in a large pan and add 1 Tbls of olive oil.
Carefully sweat the shallot, green onion, celery, the crushed garlic clove and a twig of rosemary and a twig of thyme at low heat until the onions are glassy and soft. Do not fry them, they should not brown.
Both rosemary and thyme need some heat to develop their full aroma so you can put them in right from the beginning.
Now turn up the heat just a little, then add the uncooked rice to the pan and continue to sweat it until every grain is coated with some fat and has turned slightly translucent.

Pour in the white wine (about 100ml), stir and let the alcohol evaporate. As from now you cannot stop stirring until the dish is ready. When the wine is almost gone, pour in a ladle of the hot stock, add a good pinch of salt and gently agitate to loosen the starch from the grains until the liquid has almost evaporated.
Pour in another ladle of hot stock or broth, let it almost evaporate again while stirring. Don't let it fall dry, but don't pour in too much stock as well. Just enough to cover the rice.
Continue to add stock, ladle for ladle and let it simmer and stir.
After about 7 minutes, add the sliced asparagus, mix it and add some more hot stock.
The whole cooking time will be about 20 – 25 minutes.

A few minutes before the end, cut the green asparagus tips lengthwise and add them to the risotto.
They should not turn too soft, but retain some of their bite.
Add the halved cherry tomatoes a bit later as well.
Regularly check the rice. It should be soft and creamy on the outside, but a little al dente inside with a tiny core.
When the rice is done and a little liquid is still left, take the pan off the heat, remove garlic and the twigs of the herbs, add the second 20-25g of butter, melt it and mix thoroughly without damaging the rice grains.
Add 2 Tbls of freshly grated Parmigiano and stir it as well. Cover the pan with a lid, let it rest for 3 minutes.
The butter and grated Parmesan cheese will give the dish it's final creaminess.
The risotto should be slightly fluid, rich but without being watery.
Roughly chop some basil leaves and stir them in, then your dish is ready to serve.

Arrange it on a flat plate, then sprinkle it with some more of the chopped basil leaves and a bit of freshly grated Parmigiano.

Enjoy your food! ^_^