Seafood Risotto

There is practically nothing better than sitting down for a high quality supper and be served a huge helping of seafood risotto. This Italian recipe can be made with a number of flavours and its smooth creaminess hardly ever fails to impress. The fascinating thing about risotto is that it was never planned to be this delightful, the entire dish was designed to be a joke.

Rice was brought to Italy and Spain by the Arabs in the fourteenth century and it was discovered that the climate was fantastic for the growth of the rice. Soon rice became a main staple of the area and there were many wonderful recipes that followed.
In 1574 there was a glass craftsman that was creating stained glass for a church that was being constructed. There was some question as to the components he was using and he was being mocked. As a way to get back at these people for mocking him, he made a rice recipe filled with saffron, planning to make them all sick, instead they all found it very delicious and risotto was born.

Later Italian seafood was added and Italian seafood risotto was unveiled to the world. Today risotto is cooked with a wide range of different types of rice; Arborio, carnaroli, padano, and vialone nano. These are short grain rice which has the high starch content required to create seafood risotto.

To make a risotto you first sauté the rice with onions, garlic, butter and olive oil, then over a low heat you add white wine to the rice and allow the rice to soak up the liquid. Next very hot seafood stock is added in small amount and the heat is raised. Risotto should be constantly stirred at this stage in order to release all the starch from the rice, once a creamy consistency is reached, the risotto is taken from the heat and cold butter is added in order to improve the creaminess.

For various other forms of risotto grated cheese could be added, but in Italian cooking seafood and cheese should never be mixed, so for risotto you add no cheese. Your risotto needs to be consumed while it is hot because as it cools down the starch causes it to clump together. You also need to cook your seafood risotto until it is just liquid enough to spread out on a plate, but is has no extra liquid.

Regardless of whether you make a decision to cook yyour own risotto or head out to your own favored dinner experience there is nothing that can touch the taste of the perfect risotto. The rich and creamy rice and wonderful taste is always the ideal beginning to the fantastic mealtime.
Seafood risotto is regarded as one of the basics of Italian cooking, but do not hesitate to try other tastes, you will know a risotto is going to make your pallet pleased.

Rodney is a seafood risotto lover who has always loved talking about it. Have a look at my website about Seafood Risotto for wonderful and delicious risotto recipes.