Fish Thursday: Shrimp and Spinach Risotto Edition

It’s been chaos around the Nerd’s Eye View HQ lately. I was down with the plague that everyone in Seattle seems to be contracting and oh, yeah, I bought a house. For a while there, it felt like I would never be off the phone again. Mortgage brokers, escrow, long calls to the foreign office to negotiate closing dates, driving back and forth between here and the new place, signing my name over and over and over again… There’s been little cooking and restless sleep and much stress. Things have slowed down again and finally, finally, I have time to cook. I was wanting a good home cooked meal even if I had to be the one to cook it. So. Risotto.

You think it’s a lot of bother to make risotto, but it’s not really. It’s more about babysitting the stuff then it is about fussy cooking. Yeah, it takes a while, but it’s not like you can’t do laundry at the same time. That’s what I did.

Start by sauteeing the onions in olive oil. Some folks use real butter; I’m for olive oil in almost everything except baking. When the onions just start to brown, add the arborio rice and toss that in the onions and olive oil until it’s good and coated. Then, start adding the liquid – some folks use stock, I just used water. I know that doesn’t give you as rich a risotto, but I didn’t have fish stock and I didn’t want to use chicken stock. I added some saffron, ground pepper, and a bit of sea salt. The trick is to add the stock in smallish amounts, maybe a cup at a time, and stir often. When the liquid is all absorbed, add more until the risotto is done. When the rice was cooked all the way through, I tossed in the shrimp and put the lid on. I chopped up some fresh spinach and by the time I was done with that, the shrimp were exactly the right color. I mixed in the spinach in and by the time it was all stirred evenly, it was done. See, no bother at all, really.

The shrimp, by the way, were American farmed white shrimp. These are okay sustainability wise and they tasted great. I stayed away from the Thailand farmed tiger prawns, a big no no on the seafood list.

I didn’t have any Parmesan, so for a little extra richness, I poured about a tablespoon of olive oil over the top once it was on the plate. Voila! A complete meal, easy and oh, my, you should have come for dinner when I invited you. I don’t mind if you eat and run and risotto isn’t so great for leftovers. Never mind. It’s what’s for lunch tomorrow.

And now, excuse me, I must go get my laundry from the dryer.