Vicky ParryYork Asparagus Festival, which is being held on Saturday 26 and Sunday 27 May at various locations around the city, is an offshoot of the York Food Festival and this year plays host to a vast range of exciting events and guests. One such event is the leading Scarborough chef Giorgio Alessio who will be demonstrating two Italian dishes using local produce.
Giorgio, who is chef proprietor at La Lanterna Ristorante on Queen Street, will be using Yorkshire asparagus to make a risotto with carnaroli rice and robiola, a soft cheese from his home region of Piedmont, in northern Italy. His second dish will also feature rice, but this time basmati, with steamed Yorkshire asparagus, topped with a savoury lemon-and-ginger zabaglione.
Giorgio will be cooking at noon on Sunday 27 May in the demonstration area in Parliament Street, York’s main shopping area.
He has a longstanding passion for merging Italian recipes with Yorkshire produce: his cookery book White Truffle Yorkshire Pudding, which was hailed by food critic Tom Parker Bowles as ‘gloriously inspired… [it] offers wonderful dishes using locally sourced food’, focused on the same theme.
“Northern Italians love asparagus,” said Giorgio. “There are restaurants in Piedmont that specialise in it, opening just during the asparagus season.”
For more information click here.
