

Asparagus is nature’s welcome mat to spring vegetables. They’re nutty, greeny, nutritions and require very little prep.

Personally, my family adores the wild asparagus but it’s very hard to come by. We don’t have a good foraging spot and by the time I see the Italian ladies gingerly stepping out of an abandoned field, pinching their sweater closed with one hand and clutching a half-full plastic bag in the other, that area has been picked clean.

I managed to plant some wild asparagus on my balcony only to be thwarted by my six-year-old daughter. When Ada skips through the window chewing with glee it means that she just popped tender shoot into her mouth.

So no fancy-schmancy wild asparagus pressure cooker risotto recipe. I just went to my veggie store and got a bunch of “regular” asparagus. Should you get a couple of handfuls of wild shoots, they can be used in this recipe as well.

The pressure cooker can work its magic on any veggie – wild or not!

How to make a Micro Stock

“Micro” refers to the small just-enough-for-the recipe quantity of stock and not that other cooking implement that starts with the word “micro”. Micro stocks are fast, because you’ll making less than the usual “full pot” so it requires fewer ingredients and the time to pressure is reduced, too.

Micro stocks are useful if you don’t have a particular stock on-hand, if you didn’t have time to make it ahead-of time, storage of large quantities of stock are an issue or to take advantage of an ingredient you don’t happen to get a hold of very often and it would be great to use right now.

A micro stock can be made with just one ingredient or many if you wanted to toss in extra spices (like black pepper corn) or a chicken wing… go! After making the micro stock strain some, all or none of the ingredients. In this particular recipe, I make the micro stock using only the asparagus stems, and then go on to use the ingredient in my recipe.

To make a micro stock add the ingredient(s) you want to flavor the cooking liquid with into the pressure cooker along with the same amount of liquid the recipe requires. Then pressure cook 10 minutes for anything veggie, 30 for any meat and bone whacked into 1″ (2.5cm) pieces. The pressure cooker can be opened with Normal or Natural Release (depending on how much time you have).

Get the micro stock going first, and prep for the rest of the recipe while it’s pressure cooking away.

Pressure Cooker Accessories Pr. Cook Time Pr. Level Open 3 L or larger none 6 min. High(2) Normal