Asparagus and Chicken Risotto

I spotted the first of the English asparagus in Waitrose yesterday so eagerly grabbed some without giving much thought to what I was going to use it for. It seemed too early for asparagus but looking back at last year’s posts, we had the first of the season on the same week of the year.

These were fairly large so I decided to chop them up and use them in a risotto, following our basic recipe. I’m glad I did because these were quite tough and a little bitter, unlike the sweet spears found later in the year.

Some chicken also went into the risotto, as well as some pheasant stock we made up a while ago. The pheasant stock worked well with the chicken and added a deeper, rounder note than the usual chicken stock. There was also some thyme but it got a bit lost amongst the bigger flavour of the stock. I would have liked some more sweetness too, the shallots I used didn’t provide as much as I thought they would.