Monday, May 25, 2009

Seafood Risotto

Ingredients :

350-400 gram Carnaroli rice (instead Arborio rice)

500 gram Seafood selection (frozen)

75 ml Extra virgin olive oil

2 Cloves of garli

1 Chilli (mild)

30 ml (2 tablespoonful) Tomato purèe

1 Shallot (finely chopped) - alternatively you can use ½ onion

100 ml White wine

1 Litre (1 ¾ pints) of hot fish stock - 2 stock cubes - (note : you probably will need more than 1 ltr)

2.5 ml (½ teaspoonful) Cracked black pepper
Salt
A small handful of flat leaf parsley (roughly chopped)


Method :

Defrost the frozen fish (do not use the microwave as it partially cooks the fish)
pat the fish dry with kitchen paper

Put the olive oil in a large pan
Heat the oil, add the garlic and the chilli (break the chilli bean in two pieces).
Sweat them over a gentle heat till the garlic turns golden
Quickly remove it from the pan and discard it
Immediately after the garlic is discarded, remove the chilli and discard it

Turn the heat to medium and add the seafood into the pan.
Stir well and cook for no more than 2-3 minutes (note: frozen seafood selection is allready pre cooked, so an excessive exposure the heat would inevitably overcook the seafood) this is to flavour the oil and for preparing the seafood for the last stage.
After 2-3 minutes, quickly transfer the seafood (a slotted spoon is ideal for this operation) into a bowl
Set the seafood aside for a later stage (I suggest covering the bowl with foil)
Coming back to the pan, you can see that now we have a lovely flavoured oil wich we will use to start our risotto.
Add the finely chopped shallot and sweat over a medium heat for about 3-5 minutes or until the shallot is soft.
Add the rice.
Stir till the rice is completely coated with the oil and become translucent. Keep stirring and sweat the rice for a minute or two
Add the white wine, keep stirring and let the wine evaporate (it will probably take a couple of minutes).
Now, add the stock and turn the heat to medium/low. The stock, which has been kept simmering in order to stay hot, should be added at the rate of a couple of ladlefuls at a time and when this is absorbed, add more stock. Carry on in this way for about 15 minutes. During this stage, do not leave the pan alone and stir regularly (gently).
Now, immediately after the first couple of ladlefuls of stock, add the tomato purèe.
Stir.
Meanwhile you keep going, adding stock as required and stirring (gently), check the seasoning and add the salt accordingly.
add the pepper ((½ tsp).
After 15 minutes you will probably need an extra 3 to 5 minutes to complete the final stage of cooking (this time depends on the type of rice you are using). This also means that you have only 3 to 5 minutes left to complete the cooking of the seafood.
add the seafood into the pan. The seafood is colder than the pan contents so increase the heat (high heat) for few seconds and then return the heat back to what it was before.
aste the rice every minute until the rice is cooked "al dente" (this means that the rice is tender outside, but still slightly firm to the bite in the centre).
Regular but gentle stirring is required for the last minutes in order to avoid the risotto sticking to the bottom of the pan.
In these last minutes, if the stock is completely absorbed, you can gradually add a bit more (say half ladle at a time) because at this final stage you do not want the risotto becoming too watery.
When the rice is perfectly cooked "al dente", add the parsley and stir for few seconds.

The risotto is ready to be served for 4


Check for my other Italian Recipe :


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