Holy Ingredients, Aquaman!

Well, tonight I decided to make the Seafood Risotto since I picked up some mussels, clams and shrimp at Whole Foods yesterday. This recipe was extremely prep-heavy so this one was a bit time-consuming, I have to say. Although, I think it was worth it, because this was a really refreshing meal! There were so many ingredients, and a lot of twists and turns, so I'm going to summarize here. If you are interested in a more in depth list, with measurements, shoot me an email and I will send it along. Since I've made risotto before, I won't bore you with a step-by-step here!



For this version of the risotto, the recipe called for either making a homemade seafood stock, or using a store-bought one. I bought one, but went the extra mile and simmered it with all the fixings that would have gone into the homemade one, without any of the seafood. I added 3 squished tomatoes, a bay leaf, a parsley sprig and some chopped carrots. I strained the mixture before I started scooping it into the risotto.



Meanwhile, I heated up some oil and butter in a large pan and added chopped celery, onion and garlic (a soffritto, the Italian version of a mire poix) and to that I added chopped fennel, fennel seeds, chili powder and some saffron. From now on, the more I stir the mixture, the more yellow in tint it will become, and that's because of the saffron. While it's red in color, it turns anything you add it to a bright, fresh yellow color.



Once the soffritto was softened, I added the Arborio rice and allowed it to fry a little bit, until the granules had a nice translucent outer coating.



Now, I'm going to skip a bit here - because you know how to make risotto already! It takes patience, many ladles of stock (seafood, in this case) and lots of stirring! But once the risotto was about done, I added a handful of parmesan and seasoned it up with some salt and pepper. The recipe actually calls for leaving the parmesan out (Italians don't think that seafood and cheese mix), but the nutty, salty flavor of the cheese is better than any salt...so I added a little anyway...but definitely not as much as a normal risotto recipe would call for. Once it was all stirred together, I threw in my mussels, clams and shrimp and covered the pot to allow the shellfish to steam.



As the shellfish started to open and the shrimp were turning pink, I added some globs of butter to finish off the risotto and stirred it all up to heat everything through. I also took some of the mussels out of their shells and stirred it directly into the risotto. This eliminated the mess of a bunch of shells at the dinner table, but also got the mussel juice mixed into the risotto adding a bit more briny flavor to the mix...something I love! I also poured some lemon juice and olive oil on top to add to that freshness.



Once plated, I garnished with fennel fronds and some chopped parsley. This was a delicious, comforting meal for a rainy Monday night! The mussels and shrimp were cooked to perfection...but the clams could have used a few more minutes. Next time, I'll throw the clams in first, and follow with the rest as they seem to need a few less minutes to steam.

Zuppa's on!

Tonight, I was in the kitchen for quite awhile, but it was well worth it! I made what Jamie Oliver calls "La Mia Ribollita Preferita," his favorite ribollita. This is a Tuscan soup whose name literally means "reboiled." According to Wikipedia, Italians used to make this soup by reheating leftover minestrone soup from a previous meal.

The cannellini beans, which I bought dried, needed to soak in a bowl of water overnight. Before I went to sleep yesterday, I placed my dried beans in a bowl, filled it with water and covered it with some saran wrap. When I got home from work today, the first thing I did was place those beans on the stove in a large pot with some water, a squished tomato, a bay leaf and a small, peeled potato. Dried beans need to cook for about an hour, whereas fresh ones only need about 25 minutes, so I knew I had an hour of simmering ahead of me.



Then I got my mise en place together!



While my beans were cooking, I finely chopped 2 red onions, 2 carrots, 3 stalks of celery and 3 garlic cloves. I placed them all in a pot with some olive oil, a pinch of ground fennel seeds and a little bit of dried red chili, and cooked them on a medium heat, for about 20 minutes. I allowed the mire poix to sweat, without browning. Meanwhile, I cubed some bread and thinly sliced a beautiful bunch of kale.

Once the 20 minutes had passed, I added a can of plum tomatoes and allowed it to simmer for a few more minutes. Once it had simmered, I added the beans from the other pot, after removing the tomato, bay leaf and potato. You want to reserve the cooking liquid to actually make the soup (but I found that if you don't have enough, it works to add some hot water from the sink as well - just make sure you season).



Once the mixture came back to a boil, I added my sliced kale and it immediately started to wilt into the soup. Doesn't it look bright and delicious!?



I softened some cubed semi-stale bread with some of the cooking liquid and then added that to the soup as well. I made this loaf of French Herb bread this weekend, so it wasn't exactly crunchy-stale but it worked for this situation. The bread really thickens up the soup and gives it this fantastic texture!



I continued cooking the soup for another 30 minutes, adding a little more water to loosen it up a bit along the way. It was nice and thick, and the recipe called for 4 big glugs of extra virgin olive oil to top it all off. This gave the soup a lovely sheen and a great silky texture. So comforting on a cold day like this one!



I served the soup with a great panzanella salad, but more on that tomorrow - I figured I'd split this evening's cooking into two posts for two reasons. One, I was racing around the kitchen this evening - these two recipes were pretty labor intensive, and two, tomorrow's my late night at the gym so we'll be eating leftovers for sure!

Buona notte il amichi miei!