Grow Your Own Magazine

OH had been asking about a risotto for ages - as I tended to cook them for myself the weekends that he took the toddler to visit granny while I studied. As a long relaxing cooking helped me unwind a bit (and gave me an excuse to open some white wine!!). Usually I made mushroom ones, but as we had leftover prawns (not very many) and were in the fishmonger on saturday looking for inspiration, we decided to make a seafood risotto for saturday night. Which was delish!!!


Fry one onion and a couple of cloves of garlic in some butter until golden. Add 160g risotto rice and fry for another minute or so until you hear it cracking. Add a glass of white wine and allow it to be absorbed (we had no wine this week but it was perfectly fine without). Then add ladelfulls of hot stock, stirring well with each addition, allowing it to be absorbed before adding the next, until rice is cooked.

Defrost about 6-8 tiger prawns (pre-cooked and shelled - a freezer standby for me), these get added about 1-2 ladels of stock before rice finishes cooking. (Guess - it's not terribly important, but they tend to need just a little more time to heat through properly).

In the meantime, wash and steam some clams and mussels (twas about 2 cupped handfuls of clams, and about 4 of mussels). Remove the meat from most of the shells and put to one side (reserve a couple of each in the shell for decoration).
(Tip - As I got these finished early on in the rice cooking process, I actually used the steaming water, which was now full of shellfish juices, as about half the stock in the rice - used spare chick stock in gravy following day instead).

Defrost one baby squid from the box (we got a box of frozen ones which was €2 and had about 6/7 baby squid in it so great value). Actually, 2 would have been nice, but one was enough for a taste. Clean it out - removing bone from middle and wash off innards. Chop the main squid into smallish pieces and cut the tentacles in 2. Fry these in butter - add the pieces to the shellfish meat, and the tentacles to the decoration pile.

Just as the last ladel of stock is starting to get fully absorbed (a minute or so before serving), add in the shellfish and squid meat, along with a tablespoon or so of parmesan cheese.

Serve, topping with reserved shellfish and the tentacles (if a bit squeamish, chop tentacles small and add to main dish). Have some extra parmesan on table, and some salt/pepper to taste (probably won't need them though).

A bit of rustic bread on the side for mopping up juices is also a good idea.

We drank an Italien Valpolicella with it which was perfect (hence the no wine in dish, as I thought red wouldn't work). A real summery enjoyable dish that made us think of hols.

All you need is a bit of Chorizo and it is almost a paella. I cheat, and use tinned shellfish a lot of the time. Worth also adding some diced peppers (red and green) for a bit of colour and one of the 'five a day'.