My favorite part of Christmas food...

I really love the feast we share with our family and neighbors at Christmas, even the intense days of cooking that lead up to it. However, my favorite thing is always the goose risotto that I cook up a few days later. We had it tonight, with a simple salad and a bottle of wine that was left over from Christmas.

Normally I use goose stock from the leftover bones, but a long trip to the park and subsequent nap meant that it would not have been ready in time for dinner, so I used the double extracted chicken stock leftover from the wild mushroom risotto and added a generous spoonful of the concentrated juices that had been carefully gathered from the bottom of the roasting pans. It made a strong, meaty brown stock that worked perfectly for the risotto.

I start with the typical arome of Tuscan food: diced pancetta, diced shallot (onion is traditional, but shallot works better), diced carrot, diced celery and two peeled whole cloves of garlic. To this I add a generous handful of fatty goose skin and tough bits of meat, diced very finely.

It goes in this order:

Per each cup of arborio rice heat a Tablespoon of butter, a Tablespoon of goose fat (I prefer the fat that I reserve from the roasting pans, as it has the roasted goose flavor in addition to the rosemary, fennel and garlic of the subcutaneous stuffing, but the pure, snow-white goose fat that I render from the free cavity fat and fatty skin flaps works well too), and a Tablespoon of fragrant extra virgin olive oil. When it is hot, I add the chopped pancetta and the chopped goose bits. One the fat has rendered from this, I add the garlic and shallot. When the shallot has turned transluscent I add the carrots and celery. When the aroma is so good that I can't stand it I add my rice and a few finely chopped dried porcini mushrooms. Once the rice takes on a pearlescent quality, I add a cup or so of dry white wine (I normally use extra dry white vermouth, but we had an opened bottle of Orvietto Classico, so I used it and was a little more generous than usual). When the wine cooks down, I turn the heat to low and add ladlesful of hot stock, stirring every few minutes and adding stock until the rice is cooked al dente. When the rice is nearly ready I stir in big chunks of goose meat, let it warm in the risotto, then, off heat, stir in a generous helping of grated reggiano parmeggiana and fresh cracked pepper. Normally I top it with chopped celery and offer freshly grated cheese at the table, but I was too lazy to go out in the cold to pick parsley, so I skipped that. I also will finish it with either butter or veal marrow, but there was enough rendered fat in it, so I let it stand.

For the salad I used a mesclun with a generous addition of radicchio, sliced fuyu persimmons, pomegranite seeds, and shaved pecorino romano. For a dressing I made a standard shallot/balsamic vinaigrette with a dollop of Dijon mustard.

I really cannot recommend a better meal for a cold night!

We finished with a Napolitano ricotta and candied fruit pie that my cousin made, following his mother's recipe and Sambuca. If he gives me the recipe along with permission to post it, I will, but otherwise, use your imagination and keep it from being too sweet.