Guide to eating prickly pears

Right now, every fence along every south Italian road is ripe with prickly pears, but in my opinion they look better on the cactus than on my table.

Top10 Italian Books 1

Top10 Italian Books

My list of the most rewarding Italian writers

best of Naples

How to get the best of Naples

My top 5 of things to explore in Napoli

Books set in Italy - Italian Notes

Favourite Books Set in Italy

My list of the best classic books on Italy

Risotto recipe with fava beans and candied lemon

Risotto alle fave e limone caramellato 
This risotto recipe with fava beans and candied lemon may sound like a strange combination of sweet and savoury. But it works amazingly well.

The extraordinary thing about this recipe is that it uses candied lemon peel to spice up rice and beans. An interesting combination that works amazingly well and lifts an otherwise ordinary dish a step up the culinary ladder.

Making the candied lemon may seem like a lot of trouble – followed by heavy duty cleaning – but actually it only took me 10 minutes, and it made the meal much more fun and interesting.

Ingredients
1 lemon peel
2 tbsp sugar
320 g Arborio rice
350 g fresh shelled horse beans/fava beans
olive oil
100 g parmesan
salt, pepper, oregano

For the broth (can be replace by ready-made vegetable stock)
2 carrots
2 onion
2 shallots
½ fennel
laurel, parsley and

Preparation
Melt sugar and 2 tbsp water in a saucepan
Wash the lemon and cut the yellow zest into strips.
When the sugar is brown and smoky mix in the lemon zest.
Place the candied lemon peel on a piece of parchment paper to cool.
To make the broth peel shallots, onion, carrot and fennel and chop coarsely.
Boil the vegetables for 30 minutes with laurel, salt and parsley.
(If you use ready-made broth, bring it to the boil to make it ready for use)
Fry the rice in olive oil.
Stir and top up with boiling broth (without the vegetables) continuously for 12 minutes.
Add shelled horse beans and continue stirring and adding more broth for another 7 minutes until the rice is tender. The texture should be a little runny.
Grate parmesan and mix it with the risotto.
Top with candied lemon peel and fresh oregano.

Other rice recipes

Squash risotto

Recipe rice balls – Italian arancini

Orange rice recipe

Risotto recipe with fava beans and candied lemon