Failure: Spelt Risotto

Firstly - this was supposed to be a recipe for farro risotto.  That was the first problem.  Farro.  

It sounds good in theory.  It's super healthy and purportedly tasty and toothsome with a nutty flavor.  I imagine something like brown rice crossed with barley.  It's also incredibly hard to find. 

Target had some precooked farro in a vacuum sealed bag.  I passed this up reasoning that the starches from cooking were necessary for proper risotto.  At Whole Foods, there was no bulk farro to be found, and the shelf space for farro was bare.  However, a "helpful" employee told us that spelt was pretty much the same thing and would work just fine in a risotto.  So we go spelt.

Here's just some of ingredients used.  That's spelt over there.  Weren't there cherry tomatoes?

Another thing you should know: this was a Test Kitchen recipe.  Those guys really know their stuff, and their recipes always turn out well if you follow the recipe.  ALWAYS FOLLOW THE RECIPE.  Once you deviate from the recipe, all bets are off.  

I'm a good enough cook that I'm usually confident about changing a (non baking) recipe around if it suits me, but this time I was working with two unknowns: 1) grains I am completely unfamiliar with and 2) risotto, which I have eaten before but never made.  Red alert!  Danger!  We have gone from trying to solve a two-body problem to trying to solve a three-body problem.  

Here are the cherry tomatoes!  They were busy getting quartered.  But not drawn. 

The first clue I had that all was not well happened while cooking the grain.  I was supposed to "simmer and stir often until all the liquid was absorbed or evaporated, about 20 to 25 minutes."  I have a hard time with reducing liquids as it is - I get impatient.  I almost never let a sauce reduce as much as it needs to in order to get properly saucy.  However, after 40 minutes of simmering and frequent stirring, I simply poured off the excess and continued on my way.

The results weren't terrible.  The flavor was quite good.  You see, after cooking the grains, I stirred in cherry tomatoes, baby arugula, lemon zest, lemon juice, butter, and parmesan.  Tasty stuff.  However, the grain was quite chewy and not at all risotto-esque.  And when I say the grain was quite chewy, I don't mean in a bad way, just in an out-of-place way.  I think spelt would work well as a salad topping, for example.  

See? Not bad looking, just not risotto...

Here's how I'd fix this recipe.  Forget fancy new healthy grains.  Forget risotto.  All that tasty stuff that got added to the grains?  Add it to brown rice or maybe just noodes.  Yummy, easy, and solves the problem of waiting for liquid to disappear.  

On the plus side, I discovered another reason to love Cooking for Two.  When a new and experimental recipe doesn't turn out as expected, there's less food to be disappointed by!  

What: Farro Spelt Risotto
Source: America's Test Kitchen Cooking for Two 2011

Results: Veto.  *Maybe* try again someday with real farro.