Minor food experiment. One of my favourite risottos is mainly flavoured by lemon. Lemon, watercress and the usual handfuls of onion, garlic and parmesan. Also about a month ago I had a really nice black pudding with an orange sauce (it might have been an orange jus – but that just makes me thing of Edwyn Collins and does not seem right). Anyway, Saturday night food collision: I had some really nice morcillo, and some oranges – would an orange and morcillo risotto work?
It was interesting, though it did not quite work. Admittedly I was making it quite late, and my handfuls were a bit inconsistent – and perhaps I was a bit over zesty in producing my zest. Whatever, the final result was passable, interesting but a bit sweet for a main meal. There weren’t a lot of vegetables, so there was little to counter the sweetness of the very juicy orange used. Perhaps I squeezed too much juice, and also it occurred to me that the morcillo was not as strong flavoured as the British black pudding used by Savoir Faire. Nevertheless the morcillo mouthfuls were really nice, so I don’t think the experiment was in vain. And indeed replacing the morcillo and parmesan with a bit of cream and sugar, it would be a wonderful rice pudding.
So what went wrong? The lemon risotto works because of the sharpness of the lemon. Orange just is not that sharp. The black pudding/orange combo works as a starter as it is sweet and meaty. But the rice – being creamy – does not work all that well with sweetness. Well, not as a main course. But the progress of food science cannot always be non-stop success.