Italian Friulian Risotto with Sclopit and Montasio | Risotto con Sclopit e Montasio
Sclopit is the first thing the Friulian countryside gives back after winter. It is Silene vulgaris, bladder campion in English, and the name comes from the pop the inflated calyx makes when it is crushed between two palms. From late March the tender shoots are cut along ditches and vineyard headlands, and for a few weeks they turn up in frittate, in soups and above all in risotto.
This version pairs them with Montasio, the mountain cheese of the same region, and the pairing is not decoration. Sclopit is grassy and faintly sweet, with none of the bitterness of nettle or the iron of spinach, and on its own in a risotto it can vanish. Montasio mezzano, aged five to ten months, has a nutty lactic depth and enough salt to give the herb something to stand against without covering it.
Everything technical here serves that balance. The brodo is vegetable and deliberately weak, the soffritto has no garlic, and the sclopit goes in twice: half early so its flavour infuses the rice, half at the end so the plate still tastes of a raw spring green. The rice is Carnaroli, cooked all onda, loose enough to move when the plate is tipped.
Yield: 4 servings. Prep: 30 minutes. Cook: 25 minutes. Total: about 55 minutes. Difficulty: intermediate. Course: primo piatto. Region: Friuli Venezia Giulia, the plain between Udine and the Julian foothills.
The Story
Friuli Venezia Giulia has two kitchens that barely speak the same language. Along the coast and the eastern border the cooking looks to Venice and to Central Europe, with goulash, paprika and strudel beside fish. Inland, in Carnia and on the plain, the food came out of poverty and out of what grew wild. Sclopit belongs to the second kitchen, and nobody ever bought it because nobody ever sold it.
Wild herb gathering in Friuli was a spring economy, not a hobby. After a winter of polenta, cured pork and preserved vegetables the first green shoots were the only fresh food available, and families knew a dozen by name: sclopit, urticions for nettle tops, radic di mont for the alpine chicory. Sclopit was the gentlest of them and it was cooked simply because it needed nothing.
Montasio comes from the other half of the region and from a much older institution. Benedictine monks at the abbey of Moggio Udinese were making it on the Montasio plateau by the thirteenth century, and its name has appeared on price lists in Udine since 1773. It is the cheese of frico and of the Carnian dairies, and it reaches this risotto as mountain cheese always reached the plain, traded down from the pastures for grain.
Ingredients
For the risotto
Carnaroli rice, 1 1/2 cups (300 g)
Sclopit, Silene vulgaris, leaves and tender shoots only, 7 oz (200 g) after picking
Montasio mezzano, aged 5 to 10 months, finely grated, 3 oz (85 g)
White onion, very finely chopped, 1 small, 3 oz (85 g)
Unsalted butter, 3 tbsp (42 g), divided
Extra virgin olive oil, 1 tbsp (15 ml)
Dry white wine, Friulano for preference, 1/3 cup (80 ml)
Fine sea salt, about 1 tsp (6 g), added in stages
Freshly ground white pepper, to taste
For the vegetable brodo
Water, 7 cups (1.65 liters)
Yellow onion, halved, 1 small
Carrot, 1 small
Celery stalk, 1
Leek green, 1
Parsley stems, 5
Fine sea salt, 1/2 tsp (3 g) only
For finishing
Montasio stravecchio, aged 18 months, shaved, 1/2 oz (15 g)
Unsalted butter, cold and diced, 1 1/2 tbsp (21 g)
Sclopit leaves, small and raw, 12
Extra virgin olive oil, a few drops per plate
Freshly ground white pepper, to taste
Preparation
Pick and wash the sclopit
Sclopit grows low to the ground and carries soil in the leaf joints, so wash it in three changes of cold water rather than under a running tap, lifting it out each time and leaving the grit behind. Pull away every stem thicker than a matchstick, since they stay stringy however long they cook. Keep twelve small leaves aside raw and dry the rest.
Blanch half the sclopit and chill it
Bring a small pan of salted water to a rolling boil and drop in half the picked sclopit for 40 seconds only, then lift it into iced water. This fixes the chlorophyll and keeps the risotto green rather than olive. Squeeze it firmly, chop it and reserve it. Keep the blanching water: a ladle of it goes into the brodo and carries real sclopit flavour.
Build a weak vegetable brodo
Put the water, onion, carrot, celery, leek green and parsley stems in a pan with just 1/2 tsp (3 g) of salt, bring to a bare simmer and cook 25 minutes, then strain and add the blanching water. The brodo must taste mild and under seasoned: a strong stock buries sclopit, and because roughly 5 cups (1.2 liters) end up inside the rice, every gram of salt is concentrated on the plate.
Toast the rice dry
Warm the olive oil and 1 tbsp (14 g) of the butter in a wide heavy pan, add the onion with a pinch of salt and sweat it over low heat 8 minutes until translucent with no colour. Raise the heat to medium, add the rice and toast it 2 minutes, stirring constantly, until the grains are hot to the back of the hand and the edges turn glassy while the centre stays chalk white. This is what stops the rice collapsing.
Deglaze and cook the rice
Pour in the wine and let it evaporate completely, about 90 seconds, until no alcohol can be smelled over the pan. Add hot brodo one ladle at a time, enough to just cover the rice, keeping a steady lively simmer and stirring often but not constantly. Wait until each addition has almost gone before the next. Carnaroli wants 16 to 18 minutes, and the first salt correction belongs at minute 10.
Add the sclopit in two stages
At minute 12, when the rice still has a firm core, stir in the chopped blanched sclopit and half a ladle of brodo. It needs those last minutes to release its flavour into the starch. At minute 16 add the remaining raw sclopit, which wilts in under a minute and keeps its colour and its green smell. Splitting the herb is the difference between a risotto flavoured with sclopit and one that tastes cooked out.
Mantecare off the heat
Pull the pan off the flame while the rice is still one notch short of done and the mixture looks slightly too loose. Wait 30 seconds, then add the cold diced butter and the grated Montasio mezzano and beat them in hard, shaking the pan at the same time. Cover and rest exactly 1 minute, then check: it should spread slowly when the pan is tipped. Correct the salt and grind over white pepper.
Plating
Warm the plates, but only to blood heat. A risotto all onda loses its movement on a cold plate within seconds, and a genuinely hot plate keeps cooking the rice and turns it stodgy. Use wide shallow bowls with a broad flat base, so the rice spreads into a thin even layer rather than sitting in a mound.
Spoon a quarter of the risotto slightly off centre, then tap the base of the plate once with the flat of your hand. The rice should settle outward on its own into a smooth disc with a soft edge. If it stays where you put it, it wants a spoonful of hot brodo beaten in. If it runs to the rim, it needed another half minute in the pan.
Finish with two or three shavings of Montasio stravecchio laid flat on the surface, three or four raw sclopit leaves, a few drops of good olive oil and white pepper. Nothing else belongs here: no parsley, no lemon, no cream. The plate should read as one soft green field with two points of contrast, and it leaves the pass at once.
Professional Technique
The controlling technique here is the split addition of a heat sensitive wild herb. Sclopit holds its aroma in volatile compounds largely gone after four or five minutes over heat, and its leaves are thin and low in water compared with spinach. Blanching half of it for 40 seconds locks the colour by deactivating the chlorophyllase that turns it drab, and stirring that half in at minute 12 moves the flavour into the starch. The raw half at minute 16 supplies the top notes the cooked half has lost.
The second is the deliberate weakness of the brodo. A risotto absorbs roughly four times the volume of the dry rice, so every flavour in the liquid is concentrated fourfold on the plate. With a delicate herb this matters more than with mushroom or seafood: a stock built on roasted bones gives a risotto in which sclopit is undetectable. Salting the brodo at 1/2 tsp (3 g) for 7 cups (1.65 liters) and correcting the rice at minute 10 puts the seasoning where you can taste it.
The third is choosing Montasio mezzano over anything older for the mantecatura. At five to ten months it still has the moisture to melt into a smooth emulsion with the butter and the rice starch. Stravecchio, at eighteen months, has lost that water and turns grainy in the pan, releasing its fat as a slick. The old cheese belongs on top, shaved, where its crystalline bite is a feature.
Texture and Moisture Control
All onda means the risotto moves in a slow wave when the pan is shaken, and it is a moisture target, not a style. Carnaroli carries a high proportion of amylose in a large grain, which is why it releases creaminess gradually and forgives an extra minute better than Arborio. The starch you want comes from the outside of the grain and from regular stirring; the starch you do not want comes from burst grains, which is what a hard boil gives.
The rice keeps absorbing after the heat goes off, which is why the pan leaves the stove while the mixture still looks too wet and the grain has a faint chalk line at its centre. That minute under the lid finishes the cooking and lets the butter and cheese emulsify. A risotto that looks perfect in the pan is always tight by the time it reaches the table.
Green is the other variable, and it is lost to water and to time. Sclopit left wet in a colander goes slimy and dark within an hour, so it is washed, spun dry and used. The blanched half must be squeezed hard, because the water it carries dilutes the starch emulsion and thins the wave. A pale risotto almost always means too long a blanch rather than too little herb.
Professional Mise en Place
A risotto cannot be made ahead, so the mise en place removes every decision from the 18 minutes at the stove.
Equipment and tools
Wide heavy pan, 11 inches (28 cm), with a flat base and low sides
Separate pan holding the brodo at a bare simmer, with its own ladle
Salad spinner and three bowls of cold water for the sclopit
Fine rasp grater for the mezzano, vegetable peeler for the stravecchio
Prepared ahead
Brodo made, strained and held hot, up to 1 day refrigerated
Sclopit picked and washed on the day, the blanched half chopped and squeezed
Onion chopped very fine and cheese grated, both covered and cold
Butter cut into small cubes and returned to the refrigerator
Service setup
Brodo at a bare simmer, never boiling, ladle in the pan
Raw sclopit and garnish leaves within reach of the stove
Plates warm to the hand only, never hot
Nothing plated until the pan has rested its minute off the heat
Chef Tips
Pick sclopit before it flowers. Once the white bladder shaped calyx appears the plant puts its energy into seed, the leaves toughen and a bitter edge arrives that butter will not hide. The window runs from late March to early May, and the best shoots come from unsprayed ground away from road verges.
Taste the Montasio before you commit to the quantity. Mezzano varies a great deal between dairies, and a salty wheel at 3 oz (85 g) flattens the herb entirely. Start with two thirds in the mantecatura, taste, and add the rest only if it needs it. You can always add cheese and never take it out.
If you cannot find sclopit, the honest substitute is young spinach and pea shoots in equal parts with a small handful of watercress for the green bite. It is not the same dish and should not be called one, but it behaves the same way in the pan and the two stage method still applies.
Keep a jug of hot brodo beside the plates. Risotto tightens visibly in the two minutes between pass and table, and a tablespoon of hot brodo beaten in before serving brings the wave back. This habit is why restaurant risotto looks looser than the same recipe at home.
Common Mistakes
Cooking the sclopit from the start. Added with the onion or at minute 2, the herb spends fifteen minutes over heat and arrives tasting of boiled greens with no aroma left. Split it: blanched and chopped at minute 12, raw at minute 16.
Using a rich stock. Chicken or beef brodo, or any stock built on roasted bones, concentrates fourfold in the rice and buries a herb this delicate. Make a weak vegetable brodo and salt it at half the usual rate.
Mantecare over the flame. Cheese beaten into a pan still on the heat passes the point where its casein network contracts, the fat separates and the surface turns oily and stringy. Take the pan off, wait 30 seconds, then beat in cold butter and cheese.
Finishing with the aged cheese. Montasio stravecchio has too little moisture to emulsify and goes grainy in the mantecatura. Use mezzano in the pan and keep the old wheel for shavings on top.
Letting the pan boil. A hard boil bursts the grains and releases a floury starch that makes the risotto pasty rather than creamy, and it drives off the brodo before the rice has drunk it. Hold a lively simmer and stir often.
Wine Pairing
Collio Friulano DOC: The regional answer and the wine that went into the pan. Its almond skin bitterness runs alongside the faint green bitterness of the herb instead of arguing with it, and a Collio bottling has the weight to carry the butter and the Montasio. Its pear and field flower aromatics sit exactly where sclopit sits, which is why the pairing is local orthodoxy.
Ribolla Gialla Collio DOC: The sharper choice, and the one to reach for if your Montasio is mild. Ribolla is high in acidity and low in aromatic noise, with a citrus and white flower profile that resets the palate between forkfuls of a dish built on fat. It has the cut for a creamy risotto without adding a competing flavour of its own.
Trento DOC: A dry metodo classico from the Dolomites, and the best structural match on the list. The bead lifts the starch and butter coating off the tongue, while its lees driven bready note picks up the toasted rice. Serve a brut with little dosage, since residual sugar pushes a delicate spring herb into the background.
Soave Superiore DOCG: Garganega from the volcanic hills east of Verona, and a neighbour that behaves well here. It has more texture than most Italian whites of its weight, a saline mineral core and a bitter almond finish, and that combination stands up to grated cheese without turning heavy. Choose a bottle with no oak.
Refosco dal Peduncolo Rosso Friuli DOC: For anyone who wants a red with a risotto, and the only Friulian red light enough for this one. Serve it cool, around 57°F (14°C). Its wild plum fruit, firm acidity and faintly herbal finish echo the sclopit, and its tannin is grainy rather than gripping, so it never clashes with the cheese.
Storage & Reheating
Risotto is a dish to eat immediately and everything about it degrades on standing, so store the components instead. The brodo keeps 3 days refrigerated and freezes for 3 months. Washed sclopit keeps 2 days wrapped loosely in a dry cloth inside an open bag, never sealed in plastic, where it sweats and turns slimy. Blanched and squeezed sclopit freezes for 2 months.
Cooked risotto keeps 2 days in an airtight container in the refrigerator and does not freeze: thawing wrecks the starch structure and what comes out is mealy. To reheat, use a wide pan over medium low heat with 3 tbsp (45 ml) of hot brodo per serving, covered for the first minute so steam gets through the rice, then uncovered and stirred until it moves. Beat in a knob of cold butter off the heat and expect a duller colour.
The better use for leftovers is the one Friulian kitchens have always made of them. Spread the cold risotto 3/4 inch (2 cm) deep on a tray, chill it firm, cut it into squares and fry them in butter until a crust forms, or roll it into balls around a cube of Montasio and shallow fry them. Reheated risotto is a compromise; fried risotto is good.
Nutrition
Per serving, based on 4 servings:
Calories: 540 kcal
Total Fat: 21 g
Saturated Fat: 12 g
Trans Fat: 0.5 g
Unsaturated Fat: 7 g
Cholesterol: 52 mg
Sodium: 690 mg
Total Carbohydrates: 67 g
Fiber: 3 g
Total Sugars: 3 g
Added Sugars: 0 g
Protein: 16 g
Lactose: 0.6 g
Principal micronutrients: calcium, phosphorus, vitamin A, vitamin C, folate, iron, zinc
These figures are estimates. Sodium depends almost entirely on the Montasio, which varies widely between dairies, and the carbohydrate total assumes the full 1 1/2 cups (300 g) of rice across four plates.
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