Name: Rose Risotto with Crab and Snap Peas
Yield: Serves 4 or 6 as a Starter
Ingredients: ⅓ cup [80 ml] dry white wine; 1½ tsp fine sea salt; 1 cup [200 g] short-grain rice, such as arborio or carnaroli; 8 oz [230 g] jumbo lump crabmeat; 1 to 1½ tsp rose water; Zest and juice of ½ lemon; 1 Tbsp extra-virgin olive oil; 1 large shallot, minced; fresh rose petals or snipped chives, for garnish; 2 Tbsp unsalted butter; 3½ cups [840 ml] chicken stock or more as needed, preferably low-sodium, heated; 8 oz [230 g] sugar snap peas, strings removed, cut into ½ in [12 mm] pieces

Preparation info

Serves
4 or 6
as a Starter

Difficulty
Easy

Appears in

Flavors of the Sun

By Christine Sahadi Whelan

Published 2021

About

This delicate dish is rosy not by virtue of its color but from the hint of rose water that brings all the ingredients together into a luxurious celebration of springtime. It’s important to use a subtle hand when deploying rose water, as its perfumy presence can be surprisingly assertive, overpowering other mild-tasting foods rather than quietly enhancing their sweetness. If you grow your own unsprayed roses, a few petals strewn on top would be a pretty garnish for a romantic evening.