Covered risotto

Years ago (about 16!) my wife and I visited a restaurant in Cinque Terra on the Ligurian coast of Italy.  On our first night we randomly chose a restaurant, and we had the best pizza we had ever tasted.  We visited a second time, and we ordered a covered risotto.  When we got our food, we were presented with a stunning risotto in a large clay bowl that was encrusted with bread.  I had forgotten about it until recently, when friends of ours asked for restaurant recommendations for their upcoming trip.

I've also been thinking about trying a version of Jeff Verasano's pizza after reading about it on TFL - thanks David - (http://www.thefreshloaf.com/node/24320/pizza-margherita-after-jeff-verasano).  I decided to try to make a variation of that dish we had using this dough.  I was quite happy with the way it turned out.

Here is the dish after finishing the bake.  The dough domed up in the oven (sorry, I didn't take a "before" photo).  It browned rather nicely at 525˚F.  I had to turn down the heat so that the dough on the outside would cook without the top burning.


On serving, the dome is broken open and the risotto (wild mushroom with leek and peppers in this case) is served.  Of course, we ate the bread! 


In retrospect, I would do a couple of things differently.  I'd lower the heat a bit and make the top dough thicker to allow the sides to cook longer.  But I was very pleased for a first try.

By the way, if anyone is interested, the restaurant is called Ristorante Miky and is located in Monterosso al Mare.  They served the dish in a rather large bowl, maybe around 14-inch diameter, and it was very showy. Apparently it is one of their specialties.  Judging by their website, Miky's looks a little fancier than when I was there. http://www.ristorantemiky.it/index3.html

Brad