Shrimp Risotto a la Sushi

To download a copy of the recipe for Shrimp Risotto a la Sushi, click HERE.

In spite of how it might sometimes appear, I don’t set out to make recipes that are a little bit strange. Sometimes they just happen. This week’s recipe is not only a unique way to serve risotto; it’s a whole new way of looking at it.

The basic idea is this: prepare your risotto as you normally would, along with some shrimp and asparagus. Only this time, roll the risotto around the shrimp and asparagus in the style of sushi. (Risotto’s starchy texture makes it a natural for doing this.) To add to the effect, use steamed spinach to replace the nori (seaweed) often used to wrap sushi; and use pesto and marinated carrot ribbons to replace the wasabi sauce and pickled ginger that are normally on a sushi plate. (Depending on your sense of theatrics, you may want to plate it in a sushi-type container and provide chopsticks as in the photo at the top.) It’s a great way to change up your risotto and keep it so interesting for your family that you might even find yourselves talking to each other at the dinner table!

Some Cook’s Notes before we begin.

• As you’ll see in the recipe, you don’t need a bamboo sushi mat to make the risotto sushi. Parchment lightly sprayed with cooking spray will serve our purpose.

• Rolling the sushi is not difficult, but it helps to watch any of the many good tutorial videos available on You Tube.

• While it’s possible to cook and serve the carrot ribbons without marinating them, I wanted to represent the cleansing acidity of the pickled ginger normally served with sushi. For this reason, the marinade itself has a little extra vinegar when compared to typical vegetable marinades.

This recipe makes four meal-size servings.

Let’s start by making the risotto:

Warm 4 cups of fish stock or vegetable stock in a saucepan over low heat.

Put 2 Tbsp of olive oil in a sauté pan and sauté the 1 green or red bell pepper and 1 small onion, both finely chopped. When they are cooked through, and 4 minced garlic cloves and cook until aromatic, about another 30 seconds to a minute.

Add 1 cup of Arborio rice and 2 Tbsp of chopped, fresh oregano, and cook for 2 – 3 minutes, stirring constantly.

Add ¾ cup of dry white wine (Chardonnay or similar) to the sauté pan and cook until the liquid is absorbed.

Add the stock, ½ cup at a time, stirring constantly and waiting till the liquid is absorbed before adding more. (Constant stirring helps release the starches in the rice. This gives the risotto its signature creamy texture and is an important part of the risotto method.)

When all the broth is absorbed, remove the skillet from the heat. Stir in ½ cup of shredded or grated parmesan till the cheese is completely incorporated, and add salt and pepper to taste. Set aside while you prepare the rest of the dish.

Next, we’ll make the marinated carrot ribbons:

Wash and trim 3 or 4 large carrots, and cut them in half length-wise. Using a wide peeler on the flat side of the cut carrots, slice each carrot into ribbons. Cut the long ribbons in half so that all the pieces are 3" - 4" long.

To make the marinade, combine 1/3 cup of white wine vinegar; 1 minced garlic clove; ¼ cup chopped fresh basil; and 2 Tbsp chopped fresh oregano in a small bowl. Drizzle in ¾ cup of olive oil while whisking rigorously till the marinade has a smooth consistency. Add salt and pepper to taste.

Place the carrot ribbons in a sealable plastic storage bag, and add the marinade. Let the carrots marinate while you continue with the rest of the recipe.

While the carrots are marinating:

If using the spinach, place one pound in a large pot fitted with a steamer basket. Steam the spinach till cooked through. (This should only take a few minutes.) Drain well and set aside.

Place ½ pound of fresh asparagus in a bowl, drizzle with olive oil, and season with salt and pepper.

Cook the asparagus until cooked but firm. Set aside.

Place one pound of peeled, uncooked shrimp in a bowl, drizzle with olive oil, and season with salt and pepper. Cook the shrimp through, using skewers soaked in water to make turning them over easier. Be careful not to overcook them. When done, set the shrimp aside.

Use the same pan to cook the marinated carrots to desired doneness.

To assemble the risotto “sushi”:

Place half of the risotto on a sheet of parchment, lightly sprayed with cooking spray.Place another sheet of lightly sprayed parchment on top of the risotto and roll it out to a rectangle about 7” x 9”.

If necessary to get a good rectangle, cut away some of the rolled risotto and locate it where needed to make the rectangle.

If using the spinach, spread half of the spinach evenly over the top of the risotto.

If using the spinach, put the sprayed parchment back on top and turn the assembly over together as a unit, so that the spinach is now on the bottom surface of the risotto rectangle. Remove the top parchment sheet.

Place half the asparagus and half the shrimp along the middle of the rectangle.

Lifting the parchment sheet, carefully roll the risotto sheet around the shrimp and asparagus filling.

Press down to seal the risotto.

Carefully remove the parchment sheet. Slice the rolled risotto into 1-1/2” pieces.

Repeat the above steps with the other half of the risotto, asparagus, shrimp, and optional spinach.

If desired, place the risotto “sushi” pieces on a baking sheet and warm in a 350 degree oven. (In the photo, you'll see I made half of mine with the spinach wrap, and half without.)

To serve, place three of the pieces on a dish with ¼ of the carrots and 2 Tbsp pesto.

To download a copy of the recipe for Shrimp Risotto a la Sushi, click HERE.

Now that’s food that’s fun and delicious!

Hope you’ll come back next week for another great tasting recipe! Till then, stay well, keep it about the food, and always remember to kiss the cook. ;-)

Tomato-Basil Risotto with Roasted Red Pepper

To download a copy of the recipe for Tomato-Basil Risotto with Roasted Red Pepper, click HERE.

I recently had the good fortune of attending a gathering of friends who love to cook. Some are professionals, some devoted home cooks; all contributed their talents (and, being human, no doubt a bit of competitive spirit too) to a spread of good food more expansive than any banquet I could imagine. One of the many great dishes there was a delicious shrimp risotto that reminded me of two things: that I really love risotto, and that it has been far too long since I’ve made it. Today’s recipe corrects that.

Risotto, for anyone not familiar, is a rich and highly addictive rice dish with a unique, al dente yet creamy texture. That texture, without which risotto is just not risotto, comes from the fact that it is made from any of several special short-grain rices that readily absorb liquid and release starch, instead of the long-grain rice used in most other rice dishes. The other essential part is the constant stirring (and occasional agitation of the pan itself) necessary for the rice to release its starch. Once started, the preparation of risotto is not usually something you can walk away from to let cook on its own. (For that reason, good mise en place – having everything measured, chopped, etc., before you start – is especially important here.) If you give the preparation the attention it deserves, you – and your family or guests - will be amply rewarded.

Within the basic risotto structure - rice, onion, garlic, oil or butter, wine and parmesan – many treatments are possible, This recipe is for Tomato-Basil Risotto with Roasted Red Pepper. It’s shown in the photo above topped with cornmeal-crusted codfish nuggets and surrounded by marinated grilled zucchini and yellow squash. (The fish is based on a recipe posted here previously; if you’d like a copy of that recipe, just let me know and I’ll be happy to send it. The grilled, marinated vegetables are from a recipe published by Bobby Flay in his “Grilling for Life” cookbook. It generally consists of grilling the vegetables, then marinating them.)

Hope you enjoy this take on an Italian classic! This recipe makes four servings.

Begin by warming 4 cups of vegetable broth in a saucepan over low heat.

While the broth is warming, roast a red bell pepper on the stove burner. After the entire skin is blackened, wrap the pepper in foil and set aside to steam in its own moisture. When it has cooled enough to handle, cut the roasted pepper into small pieces and set aside.

At this point, you’ll want to check your e-mails, go to the rest room, or do anything else you might otherwise be tempted to do while the risotto is cooking. The Risotto Show is about to start, and it’s performed with no intermissions!

Put 2 Tbsp of olive oil in a sauté pan and sauté the one small onion and 4 garlic cloves, all finely chopped, over medium heat. (I used a red onion just because it was what I had on hand, but any preferred kind of onion will work.)

When they are cooked through, add one cup of Arborio rice (not regular long-grain rice!) and cook for 2 – 3 minutes, stirring constantly to coat the rice lightly in the oil.

Add ¾ cup of dry white wine (Chardonnay or similar) to the sauté pan and cook until the liquid is absorbed, stirring constantly.

Increase the heat to medium-high. Add ¼ cup of chopped, fresh basil and 1 Tbsp of fresh thyme.

Immediately after, add the broth, ½ cup at a time, stirring occasionally and waiting till the liquid is absorbed before adding more.

When all the broth is absorbed, add a 14.5 ounce can of diced tomatoes (very well drained but not rinsed) and the roasted red pepper. Cook long enough to heat through.

Add ½ cup of fresh grated parmesan.

Stir until combined, and add salt and pepper to taste. Serve immediately.

To download a copy of the recipe for Tomato-Basil Risotto with Roasted Red Pepper, click HERE.

Enjoy! And please come back next week for another delicious, family-friendly recipe. Till then, stay well, keep it about the food, and always remember to kiss the cook. ;-)

Brown Rice Rizzuto

Brown rice what?

As much as the title may at first appear to be the result of a guy from New Jersey trying to spell “risotto” from how the word sounds, it’s not. This is the side-dish follow-up to last week’s Italian-style breaded fish article, and a brief explanation of its origins before we get to the recipe is probably in order.

If you cook risotto, a rich (and heavenly!) rice dish, regardless of where you learned how, the first thing you were taught about it almost certainly was this: regular rice must never be used in a risotto recipe. The rice you use must be Arborio rice, carnaroli rice, or one of a few other special varieties.

When you were told that, didn’t you wonder, even just a little, what would happen if you did use regular rice? We know it wouldn’t turn out to be risotto, of course, but what would it be? It made me wonder, and there was no way to find out except to try. It taught me two things:

1. Simply substituting brown rice for Arborio rice, and in all other ways using the risotto cooking method and ingredients, results in undercooked brown rice. 
2. Cooking brown rice using the normal rice method, but using risotto ingredients, results in a delicious, rich-tasting side dish.

And while that tasty side dish couldn’t be called risotto, being made from many of the same ingredients made it seem somehow related. The solution: name it after the great Hall of Fame Yankee shortstop and broadcaster, Phil Rizzuto.

The recipe below makes 5 to 6 servings of Brown Rice Rizzuto. The overall method for cooking the rice is based on the normal cooking instructions for whatever rice is being used. Since I used Uncle Ben’s Whole Grain Brown Rice, I replaced the 2-1/4 cups of water called for on the box with the combination of broth and wine described in the recipe. When you're making this, if the cooking directions for your rice call for a different amount of liquid, simply adjust the quantity of broth and wine proportionately.

Combine 1 cup of brown rice, ¾ cup dry white wine (Chardonnay or similar), and 1-1/2 cups of broth (vegetable or chicken, depending on what you’re serving the rice with) in a saucepan. Bring to a boil over high heat, then reduce to medium heat and cover. Simmer until the liquid is absorbed, about 30 minutes.

While the rice is cooking, put 2 tablespoons of olive oil in a sauté pan and sauté ¾ pound of vegetables (I used a combination of grape tomatoes and fresh spinach), 1 small onion (finely chopped), and 4 finely chopped garlic cloves. When the vegetables are about half-way cooked, add 1/8 cup of pine nuts. Season with salt and pepper to taste. (Avoid adding the salt when you first put the spinach in the pan. Salt draws out water and, with vegetables such as spinach, which have a high water content, this can dry the vegetables too much before they’re cooked.) When the mixture has finished cooking, drain it using a colander and then rinse well with cold water to stop the cooking. Set the vegetable mixture aside.

When the rice has absorbed all of the broth and has finished cooking, add the vegetable mixture and heat through. Stir in ½ cup of grated parmesan (fresh grated is best, and usually costs less per pound too!), then check again for seasoning, adding salt and pepper to taste if necessary. Serve immediately.

I think you'll enjoy this delicious and simple-to-make side dish. And if at some point you feel like jumping up and yelling, “Holy Cow!,” we’ll understand completely.

If you'd like a cookbook style, notebook ready copy of this or any other Kissing the Cook recipe, just let me know in an e-mail or comment and I'll get it right out to you.

Be sure to come by next week for an all new recipe! Till then, stay well, keep it about the food, and always remember to kiss the cook. ;-)