Risotto con Scampi

I had to embrace the idea that I am no good at making up recipes.
Seeing as how I had over 1400 recipes that shouldn't be a problem, right?

It still made me feel somewhat less of an amateur chef. Do you get that feeling?

But, embrace it I do, and I had to make something with Shrimp.
Because, well, I had shrimp in the freezer that's why.

I've had pretty good luck with risotto, the creamy rice dishes. But this time I wanted to do well. So I found a recipe called Risotto con Scampi. Basically Risotto with Rice. Arborio rice to be exact. And i did add in one thing; I had asparagus. Imagine, pink shrimp, creamy yellowish rice, and bright green asparagus. Beautiful. And tasty!

I had to get out my reading glasses, you know those tiny little 5 dollar blue reading glasses you get from a flea market? Yea those.
That's how tiny the writing on this cookbook was! It was a small spiral notebook, that I got for 10 cents at the library's shop. Pretty good deal! Check these out when you get a chance, totally worth it to find some good recipes.

But I digress.

This cookbook was old, and probably had real Italian recipes. Because you had to make your own stock. Luckily I had purchased the kind of shrimp with tails still on. I first sliced up some onions, carrots, bay leaf, and parsley. Then, started some water with 1/2 cup of my favorite Yellow tail Moscato, for the stock. I felt like I was a real chef!

I tossed in the tails and brought them to a boil. Then added the vegetables and spices.
I let this boil until the vegetables were soft and there was a scum on top - this is normal I promise.
So you skim off the scum and when its ready, drain the stock into a container using a fine sieve.
Squeeze the veg with a spatula against the sieve to get out all the goodness.

Then cook the shrimp in garlic butter while you start on the risotto.
Risotto is easy, just a few steps: Fry the dry rice in butter, add stock in 2 cup increments until soft and creamy, stirring constantly, and then add a fat and a cheese, possibly some herbs at the end. That's it really simple But it must be watched.
Don't worry there is a lot going on in the kitchen at once to keep you busy.

Once the shrimp was cooked there was a lot of garlic butter sauce , and that gets added to the risotto too, so when I had too much water, I dumped it over the veg/herb combo and squeezed again. Then dumped that into my stock pot. When I returned the shrimp to the heat, I made a well in the pot where the liquid ran into. And then added cut up asparagus to the center.

I also had a tub of chicken stock from the day before that I de-fatted and dumped in. Even with all this liquid, risotto is thirsty, so I ended up using yet 1 1/2 cups of water to round out the stock.

The risotto quenched and creamy, with bits of herbs from the stock, I added the shrimp and asparagus from the pot, and mixed it in with butter and Parmesan cheese.

Let me tell you, if you sit down with a pile of this meal, a glass of Moscato, and a fork, you need nothing else. The shrimp and Parmesan have enough salt. It is really heavenly.

This meal and a couple glasses of wine later, I care not that I had to follow someone else's recipe. Heck, they knew better than I did!

Happy eating (and drinking)!
Vicky aka The Clumsy Chef


Recipe:

Risotto con Scampi

Serves 6-8

Ingredients:
1 lb fresh or frozen shrimp, cleaned, deveined, tails on
2 Qts water
½ white wine (I used Yellowtail Moscato)
2 small onions
1 carrot
2 parsley sprigs or 2 tbsp dried parsley
1 bay leaf
5 Tbsp butter
½ tsp finely chopped garlic (I used garlic paste)
2 cups Arborio rice
4 Tbsp soft butter
½ c Parmesan cheese (I used Kraft, its what I had)
1 bunch asparagus

Directions:

Slice up onions and carrots. On the cutting board add bay leaf, and parsley. Then, start the water in a large stockpot with 1/2 cup of wine, for the stock. As you remove the tails, put the shrimp in a large bowl while you put the tails in the pot. Simmer these until you see it boiling again.

Add the vegetables and herbs to the stockpot. Let it cook for at least 15 mins on low heat.

Start the shrimp in garlic and 1 Tbsp butter on low heat in a hand held wok.

Start the risotto and 4 Tbsp butter in a second stockpot, cooking 2 mins while stirring.
Carefully drain the stock from the veg and tails, squeezing against the sieve over a bowl to get out all the stock. Dump the veg and put the stock back into the pot, set to a low simmer.

Add 2 cups of stock, carefully, holding the stockpot with an oven mitt – those stock pots get hot – to the risotto pot and stir constantly.

Stir the shrimp.

Chop the asparagus but leave 2 or 3 inches at the bottom, those are hard and woody.
Add another 2 cups of stock. Replenish this stock with chicken stock as needed or water.
Stir the risotto. Stir the shrimp and asparagus together with the garlic butter. Turn it down low and cover.

Add a final 2 cups of stock/water and stir. Add any juices from the shrimp if it gets too wet.

Keep stirring the risotto and check for doneness. The rice will be soft and there will be a creamy sauce. Watch the heat now, it can burn.

When the rice is done, add the shrimp and asparagus, the remaining butter, and the cheese. Turn off the heat. Serve immediately with a glass of the Moscato.

Enjoy!