Here comes the weekend and, O look, there come the thunderclouds. Good-bye weekend dive opportunity. It probably sounds silly to a lot of people that we don't want to dive in a rainstorm. Hell, we're going to get wet anyway, right?
Of course, it's not the rain. It's the lightning. Would you be willing to stand on a shoreline in a thunderstorm wearing a bundle of dynamite on your back, a bundle with a built-in lightning rod? You might. You'd probably change your mind if you ever felt the concussion from a lightning stroke hitting the lake less than a hundred feet away, just as you were trudging out of the water. That's what happened to Princess V last time we dived Lake Travis in an electrical storm.
You can understand, then, why—with stormclouds hanging over us—Princess V and I decided to forego our dive last weekend. Just our luck, the lake saw nary a drop of rain. So, here I sit, reviewing weather.com and intellicast.com, hoping to find a hiatus in the next few days' predictions of Isol. T-storms and Scat. T-storms. No such luck.
Fate should establish an 800 number for complaints—at least a website with contact information. They shouldn't be able to deprive me like this on Father's Day. I'd write a letter to my Congressman, but he's a Democrat, so he wouldn't be able to do anything.
Of course, with my former wives, I frequently said the same thing about sexual deprivation on Fathers Day, on Christmas, on my birthday, Veterans Day, Flag Day, Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, and so forth.
Guess I should count my blessings.
Sometimes, I guess I expect too much. I saw an Iron Chef episode last night—one I'd seen before. Morimoto battles a young chef of the Ohta faction (a group of Japanese traditionalists who consider Morimoto's neo-Japanese cuisine something of an abomination). This particular challenger was an expert in the use of salt, something you are unlikely to find in restaurants outside of Japan and a throwback, of sorts, to ancient times when the Japanese had no seasonings but salt and responded with creative applications.
The moment that made the greatest impression on me was when one of the judges complained that one of the challenger's dishes was too salty. Of all the possible complaints I might hear from a judge about a chef's preparations, I thought, this was the one he should have been above. Salinity is the one quality that he, more than anyone present, should have fully under control. That moment, striking as it did at the very heart of his expertise, had to be a far greater embarrassment than losing the competition. She may as well have said, "You call yourself a chef? You call yourself a salt expert?"
By comparison, I feel hardly any chagrin over the fact that my shrimp risotto, last night, turned out just a bit too salty. Hardly any.
Really.
Otherwise, I was quite pleased with the risotto. I don't know whether I've just been lucky or risotto is very forgiving. Still, this was shrimp risotto, and shrimp is not as forgiving as risotto. I'm pretty sure that the timing on the shrimp was mostly just a matter of luck.
Anyway, here's the dish I prepared for Princess V, the girlchild, and my own self (i.e., serves 3½—I'm a big eater):
Shrimp risotto
Dramatis personae
- two tablespoons olive oil
- one medium shallot, thinly sliced
- one small clove garlic, small dice
- ½ cup arborio rice
- ½ cup white wine
- three cups chicken stock or bouillon, or a fumet
- ½ teaspoon minced cayenne pepper
- ½ pound medium shrimp
- lemon zest
- ¼ cup whipping cream
- 2 tablespoons grated parmesan cheese
Quality of ingredients
See my comments of June 10th, regarding olive oil.
I prefer the richness that a shallot imparts to risotto, but most risotto recipes call for a medium onion. Try it both ways if you like. I usually don't add garlic to this recipe, but I like the way it helps peak the piquancy of the cayenne. When I say a small clove, I mean enough to produce about a half teaspoon when diced. Slice the shallot to about twice the thickness of a rice kernel—roughly that thickness. I don't mean to be anal about this, but the kernels will approximately double in thickness as they cook, and you want the thickness of the cooked shallot strands (the slices will separate into ribbons) about the same size as the cooked rice. Similarly, you want the garlic bits about the size of the cooked rice kernels.
Cooks following recipe instructions tend to be overscrupulous in trying to apply adverbial directions. I once asked a friend, who wanted to prep for me, to prepare the shallot by slicing it in half along the axis and then thin slicing the halves across the axis. She got the orientations right, but she sliced the shallot thin enough to read through. Slicing a shallot that thin actually creates two possible problems (usually both):
- Cooked directly against the pan, it dries to a crispy, onion skin texture and consistency.
- Cooked in oil, it dissolves leaving thin filaments that get caught in your teeth.
Yes, it has to be arborio rice. Forgetting for a moment that my wife's Italian ancestors will haunt your dreams with off-color Tarantellas if you try to use long-grain rice, only arborio provides sufficient surface area to dissolve the requisite quantity of wine and stock. I have devised a technique for faux risotto, but it doesn't have the blended quality of flavor that you achieve with risotto. Faux risotto is essentially just rice in a creamy sauce. To avoid the lengthy digression it would entail, I'll append a recipe for shrimp faux risotto at the end of this one. For arborio rice, check the grocery stores near you that deal in bulk foods. For reasons that escape me, prepackaging arborio rice makes it worth nearly three times as much money.
This may sound inconsistent with my assault on red cooking (so-called–)wine, but white cooking wine works just fine. If you use real white wine, use a dry white, and use half as much.
I know, every cook book tells you to use stock. I hate to echo every other cookbook, but stock is decidedly superior to bouillon. Stock will impart more flavor and result in a meatier texture. The texture is good, but in this case—shrimp—the flavor from stock might be a bit overpowering. If you are making this risotto as part of larger spread of seafoods, a fumet will make the best possible stock for this (or any seafood-based) risotto. I recommend avoiding fish stocks or bouillons sold in stores; they tend to impart a nasty odor to everything in the kitchen. If you use stock or fumet, you may need to add a little salt to your recipe.
If (like me, the other night) you happen to be out of stock (I haven't roasted a chicken in about two months, and I always make my stock from the birds I've roasted), bouillon works just fine (call it four and a half stars instead of five). For a recipe this size, use only one bouillon cube (I used two, which adds too much salt for this size recipe) in three cups of water.
I love cayenne pepper, but like all peppers, the damned things are highly variable. This dish is well served by a little red hot pepper both for tiny bit of bite and for the color it adds. The question of how much to use is a tough one, though. Sure, you can generalize about which pepper belongs in which range of the Scoville scale. Big deal. So, you know that cayenne peppers are roughly ten times as hot as jalapeños and only one sixth as hot as habañero. What does this mean in terms of the meal? I used a cayenne pepper from my garden, and that was one hot little bastard. I ended up using only a quarter of a three-inch pepper. This one little item is probably the most subjective, make-or-break item in this menu. My risotto was just hot enough to leave a hint of burn on our lips but mild enough that girlchild didn't wince. No matter what your personal preference in peppers, you have to taste them before you use them. This will help you decide how much to use and how late to add them to the dish. The earlier they go onto the fire, the softer they'll be and the milder they'll be—within reason. Don't expect a scotch bonnet to mellow down to the level of an ancho.
With seafood, all the experts say to use only fresh—to eschew frozen. Makes you wonder how the grocery stores sell all that frozen crap. I live in Austin, damned close to the Gulf, and fresh shrimp isn't always available, even here. Sometimes, you just have to decide between doing without and making do with the frozen stuff. In the case of fish, I do without. With shrimp, however, I've found that frozen doesn't necessarily mean bad. If the shrimp is supposed to be pink but looks brown, don't buy it. If it says "tiger shrimp" but looks black in spots, don't buy it. Otherwise, frozen will likely be indistinguishable from fresh.
I like Reggiano parmesan cheese, but I will not tell you that you have to use it in your recipes. Asiago cheese or romano both work fine. That stuff Kraft™ sells in a cylinder is not cheese—it's cheese food. That's the stuff they feed to real cheese. It also tastes a good deal like shredding cardboard with just the subtlest innuendo of motor oil. (Disclaimer: Kraft sells some decent cheeses. This stuff isn't one of 'em.)
Preparation notes
This is a pretty attention-intensive process, so have everything prepped before you begin sautéing. Have your mise squared-away—everything appropriately diced, slided, zested, grated, and readily at hand—or you'll be scrambling to avoid burning the rice. The stock, fumet, or bouillon should be simmering in a pot next to where you plan to make the risotto.
Preheat the olive oil in a large, non-stick skillet over a medium flame. Add the shallot and the garlic and sauté until the shallot just begins to clarify. Pour in the rice and continue to sauté until the rice is uniformly tan.
Pour in the wine and continue to sauté the risotto until the liquid is all either absorbed or evaporated. Ladle in about a quarter cup of broth and sauté as needed to keep the risotto from sticking. Once the broth is fully absorbed, ladle in a bit more. You're going to continue this process until the risotto is al dente, but just before the risotto reaches that ideal doneness (yes, I realize how horribly subjective that sounds) stir in the cayenne. After a minute or so, stir in the shrimp and lemon zest.
It is just barely possible that you will run out of broth before your risotto is quite done (this can happen if the flame is too high, causing the fluid to evaporate faster than the rice can absorb it). If this happens, turn down the flame and continue the ladling process with tap water. Don't worry. You're more likely to have stock left over. If, however, you end up cooking the risotto longer than you expect, do not overcook the shrimp. If the shrimp are done but the rice is not, remove the shrimp (chopsticks work well for this) to a separate bowl until the rice is done.
Once the rice is just al dente, stir in the cream and cheese. Gently stir the risotto until the mixture is creamy, consistent, and steamy. If you had to remove the shrimp, stir them back in now.
Because of the cheese, the risotto will cool slowly, giving a little time to prepare other portions of your meal. I wouldn't wait more than a half hour, though.
Faux risotto
I know I'm just discouraging real cooking with this, but I guess not everyone loves to cook.
dramatis personae
- two tablespoons olive oil
- one medium shallot, thinly sliced
- one small clove garlic, small dice
- ½ teaspoon minced cayenne pepper
- ½ pound medium shrimp
- lemon zest
- ¼ cup whipping cream
- 2 tablespoons grated parmesan cheese
- one cup cooked rice
Quality of ingredients
Everything I said before applies except the rice. For this version, the rice should be long-grain, short-grain, or basmati rice. Princess V and I prefer the rich, nutty taste of basmati (most American long-grain rice tastes like spitwads). Prepare the rice as you usually do (stovetop, microwave, or rice cooker all come out about the same) but substitute chicken broth or stock for the water. Do not use sticky rice preparations like sushi rice.
Preparation
In a non-stick pan, preheat the olive oil and sauté in the cayenne, shallot, and garlic. Once the shallot is translucent, toss in the shrimp and the zest. Sauté the mixture until the shrimp are done.
Mix in the rice and then the cream and cheese. Stir the mixture to blend it and warm the ingredients.
Serve.
The "real" risotto will have a more integrated quality and a richness lacking in this dish, but the faux risotto is a little easier to prepare if you're pressed for time. As for the complexity of the dish, I don't think the difference really makes the faux version worth the lost quality.
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