Shrimp Risotto! Yum!

I've only had risotto once. It was New Years and my brother, the food expert, suggested a place in SF. They served it with lamb. I loved it, just the texture of risotto, it's so good. My brother said it was... eh! ok. I forget the name of the place. It cost about $40. Since then, which was 5 months ago, ive been dying to make this at home and feel that wonderful texture again! So, i started looking for recipe's and how to make a good risotto. I found it to be pretty simple. So here it goes....

Ingredients
1. Arborio Rice (must have, this is what keeps the texture consistant)
2. Shrimp (obviously), i chose tiger shrimp about 12
3. 4 cloves of garlic
4. 1 medium yellow onion (chopped fairly small)
5. 2 sticks of celery
6. 2 quarts of chicken stock
7. fresh parsley
8. butter
9. olive oil
10. Dry Vermouth (i didnt use this, i used desert wine, worked fine)
11. mushrooms
12. fresh tomatoes diced

Not too many ingredients right? this all cost me about $12

So i first boiled the chicken stock and put the shrimp in, to add shrimp flavor to the stock!
5min, done, take the shrimp out cut to bite size pieces. Next, olive oil, butter, onions, mushrooms, celery, garlic in to the frying pan. After about 30 sec on medium i added desert wine, and the rice. So the proper way of making Risotto is you put in the rice, wait for it to soak all the liquid in the pan, then repeat until the rice becomes (al dente! i didn't know what this meant, but according to wiki :rice or beans that have been cooked so as to be firm but not hard) So you start with the vermouth and then wait till its all soaked up and add one scoop of "boiling" chicken stock (the boiling is necessary for the rice to completely soak it all up. So you wait till it soaks up and repeat till the rice is al dente! I then proceeded to add the shrimp and fresh parsley. Then added fresh tomatoes on the dish and Bam! Shrimp Risotto.



I plated it :) hee~! It may not look that great, but it tasted really, really good. I could taste everything from the small amount of butter i added, to the wine. The texture was so creamy, though i am not an expert. the fresh tomatoes and parsley was a refreshing coolness to the warm risotto. The total serving size came out to be about 3. I would definitely cook this again!

Taste: 8/10 - wonderful aroma, even better taste, creamy texture + fresh tomatoes = GOOD!
Cost: 9/10 - compared to the $40 dish i thought this was much better!
Labor: 8/10 - prep=5 min, cooking=30 min & took less than a min to devour it all!
Overall Rating 8/10

Improvements : I think if i used a better quality Shrimp it could've tasted better, and if i seasoned the shrimp. The shrimp was a little bland. and... i wish i had made more! hahaha!

Things I liked : How the rice soaked up all the different flavors of the wine, butter, and stock. You could really taste them all individually

Next up.... Shrimp Paesano

i bought a lot of shrimp :)

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