Pescado Risotto with Hop In The Box beer
Risotto is my dish. It’s my favourite and the one I like to cook to my loved once.
I can change the recipe everytime and add new ingredients, but the final results will be as good as the previous and as the following.
Risotto it’s not a complex recipe, but it’s something you need to take care for the whole cooking journey.
As all the recipe everything starts with the ingredients, fish or meat, vegetables …
Usually if we consider those ingredients as the toppings or the flavour, there are 6 basic ingredients that could never miss:
- Rice arborio
- Soffritto with scallion (it is much better than onion and Carlo Cracco the Italian master Michelin chef wrote a book about it)
- Olive oil
- Butter
- Broth
- Wine.
This is the first time take the wine out of my risotto for experimenting a bit.
I decided to try the Tanker Sauna Session from the last delivery of Hop in The Box, the craft beer club we wrote about in this article.
I choose the lightest beer, because I wanted to cook fish, but I think it might be awesome also to try the darkest beer with some meat or sausage for example.
The March box from Hop in The Box, that I decided to call “Hop(e) in The Box” because every month you’re waiting for something special, was about Estonian beer.
I have a serious problem with quantities, I know that this is really unprofessional but for the rice, cooking for example for two, I always see the level of the rice bag and that’s eat.
I think the best way to find the right unit of measure is always to try, every time you change an ingredients it might require more parmesan cheese at the end or more time to cook.
Just try it, always, many times.
For the beer it was easy I used it all, one bottle for two people, but you can put more or less, depends on the tastes.
This recipe has three main ingredients: prawns, zucchini and beer. This are the three main flavours you will perceive eating this risotto recipe.
Let’s start from the beginning!
You need two pans and one pot. In the pot you have the broth and in the first pan the risotto cooking and in the second the prawns.
Cut the scallion for the two pans, you’ll need two different soffritto, add a portion of oil and a portion of butter. When the scallion is becoming brown you put the zucchini in rice pot and the prawns in the other one. When the zucchini are getting cooked, after 10 minutes add the rice.
After 5 minutes you start with the bottle of beer in both pans, half for the prawns and half for the rice.
When the rice has absorbed all the beer you start adding the broth, but not all together, the risotto is cooking slowly, mixing it constantly.
Every time you see the broth completely absorbed you can add more until you taste the rice is cooked.
In the meantime the prawns are slowly cooking, I like to add Italian tomato concentrate (Mutti) that gives a special taste to the cooking water that just before the end of the risotto cooking will be added in the risotto pan.
And that’s eat, when rice is almost ready do this trick with the prawns water that will add a more fish flavour to the rice and start cleaning the prawns.
It’s my first written recipe so be kind, and for any doubts don’t be afraid to write me, I’ll be happy to help :)
