Maine shrimp risotto

Making a fish broth from scratch and then cooking a risotto is a "quick-cook recipe"? Actually it is quite doable on a weeknight. The only time-consuming step is peeling the fresh shrimp.

Sara Jenkins, a chef in New York, and Mindy Fox, a food editor, helpfully characterize the recipes in Olives and Oranges: Recipes & Flavor Secrets from Italy, Spain, Cyprus & Beyond as quick-cook and slow-cook.

I would not normally buy a lavish, hardback cookbook for more than $30, but I ran into Loren Jenkins at a book-signing event a few weeks ago and the proud father made a compelling case for his daughter's book. Loren, now at NPR, was a foreign correspondent for many years, and his stories about Sara learning how to cook at the elbow of local Italian homemakers made the book sound appealing.

One of the things I always appreciated about Marcella Hazan is that she did not hesitate to include the simplest recipes, like some of her tomato sauces. Jenkins subscribes to the same school of thought, and her Bistecca Chianina, our favorite dish at Dino's under its alternate name of Bistecca Fiorentina, is really more a simple technique than a recipe.

The Maine shrimp in this recipe are available in December, so I had to use the "large" shrimp available at the Fishery. You are supposed to get them with the heads on, but in our squeamish society, the guy at the store made clear to me, I was lucky to get them still with shells, minus heads. So I got an extra quarter pound, per recipe instructions, to make up for the heads in the broth.

You peel the pound of shrimp for the risotto and use the shells and heads if available for the broth. You sautée the shells for 3 to 4 minutes in 1/4 c. EVOO until they become opaque and then add the cut-up vegetables -- a celery stalk, a carrot, an onion, and a small fennel bulb -- along with a bay leaf and sautée them for 6 minutes. Then you add 1-1/2 Tbl of tomato paste mixed with 1/3 c. wine and let the wine evaporate for a couple of minutes. Then you add 1/4 bunch of parsley, 5-1/2 c. water, 1/4 tsp. saffron and 1/2 tsp. peppercorns, bring to a boil and let simmer a half hour. Turn off the heat and let steep a quarter hour, then strain. That was easy, and you get a dark, rich broth that smells like every Mediterranean dish you ever ate.

For the risotto itself, you sautée a diced onion in 3 Tbl. EVOO for 5 minutes until translucent, add 2 c. of rice and continue cooking for another 5 minutes, add 2/3 c. wine and evaporate in a minute or so, and then add the first cup of simmering broth to start the risotto process. Continue adding broth a half cup at a time until the rice is al dente. With the last quarter cup of broth, put in the peeled shrimp and 1/4 c. chopped chives, stir a couple of minutes, turn of the heat, cover and let it sit for 5 minutes.

It's a sure-fire method to keep from overcooking the shrimp. Even my so-called large shrimp cooked through with this method, but remained moist and tender. The risotto itself was redolent of a lavish bouillabaise and a nice change of pace from the cheesy, creamy risottos I usually make.

Jenkins (I think Fox is mainly a ghost writer for the chef) is very chatty about ingredients, and this is an added plus for the book, I think. For instance, she specifies Carnaroli rice for this risotto and explains in her page-long introduction to her short risotto section that she prefers Carnaroli to the more common Arborio because it makes a more luxurious and creamy risotto. I used the Arborio I had on hand, but will look for Carnaroli when I shop.

Not that I'll have much luck with that. I could not even find chives in three Chevy Chase stores. As the Magruder's guy explained to me, it comes in small packages, doesn't keep very well and they don't have much demand for it. Chives! So I used spring onion greens in a somewhat smaller portion. Stores are simply getting too scientific about what they are willing to stock, serving themselves instead of their customers.