Shrimp Scampi with Risotto

Risotto is cooked completely differently than you would have your long grain rice. So we’re not going to put it in the rice cooker to this time, all right. You sauté risotto and you want to develop the starches on the outside so the longer you sauté the grains without liquid just in the oil the better those the starches will develop. So we would prepare like I said earlier the canola oil because it develops that and stays nice, nice to individual grains. I’m just going to start with the extra virgin olive oil. Now, we want to go with this particular recipe. We want to go with the medium heat. The objective of this whole recipe is to keep the risotto as brilliantly white as we can. That will achieve the effect that we have with the contrasting sauce. And we’re going to achieve that with some Asti Spumante or Moscatto and for the dietary people it looks like we’re going to do it. We’re going to start to use low fat milk, so we’re going to start with some 2% milk, sparkling water and dilute that. And we’re going to use Asti Spumante or a Moscatto because it gives you more flavor, all right. So we’re going to go with shallot, these are Italian shallots with the Chinese flavor so. It’s an international cook meal shallot. And I want to use a sweet onion. This is going to be a citrus risotto. I want as many clean flavors, I want the essence of the onion but the harshness of the it neither want to have to cook the onion so long to bring out the sweetness because that would cause browning and we don’t want to brown anything we want to keep it white and I think you going to fall in love with this because once we’re through, I'm going to show you some variation of this very same technique that can bring you into so many different directions, you’ll be amazed. I was amazed. Okay, this is the canola oil again this will caused semi Pinot half grain, short grain and it’s almost impossible to make this and cook it in the pot it just not going to work. Again, just keep you eye on that so it doesn’t brown. This we wan to be just hot we don’t want to boil and we don’t want it cold because then its stops the process and it doesn’t develop the creaminess in the risotto. So, we started with the shallots and the onion. The significant part is we want to cook the risotto in the pan with the oil for about four minutes. Four minutes usually is my consideration of enough time to develop the starches. And again, that’s part of the dish and when you cook risotto its perfect if you still have it very al dente, so you going to get a nice soft outer shell that’s going to be an individual grains but you're still going to have a little to the tooth al dente. And that’s perfect it’s not under done and this is the only way it’s going to work—it shouldn’t be soupy or saucy it should be creaminess to it and you don’t have to add the cream to develop that. Okay, the onions and the shallot are just translucent. You notice we didn’t put garlic in this. We don’t want that harshness, garlic cooks out beautifully but in this particular dish we’re not using it. So we’re going to add the risotto. And the first thing we want to do is we want to mix it to coat all of the grain with the oil. Don’t be afraid to adjust the temperature on the stove if you feel it’s too hot lower by all means. Okay? I’d tried to use about six or eight ounce depending on the batch lay off. Okay, this is hot. The soda water gives it some matter of ever essence some foam to it but then you going to see the benefit. This will be the cooking liquid that we finish it with. One of the key techniques in my opinion when you're doing risotto is to have your wine or your alcohol or you acidity be the first introduction to liquid. Do you understand what I'm—okay. It gives you plenty of time to cook out the alcohol and leave you with the essence. The other thing you don’t want to use anything that you won’t drink. Okay. You notice we’re trying to keep all the color up for this that we can. Now, orange and lemon, I like to put the zest in at this point before we actually start with the acidity or the alcohol. It has a chance for the essential oils to come out. You can put the juice of the same lemon and orange in there it doesn’t hut. But again, that’s another enhancement. If you want to bring out the acidity and bring out this citrus portion of it that will help so we’re going to take orange probably just about one orange worth and then same with the lemon just to taste. If you want more you put it in and if you don’t leave it out same with the juice. Okay? You want to put in the first batch of liquid enough to cover or bring up to the level of the risotto. Can we see that? Do you notice that? We any kind of—okay. Now, it looks like I've got some dark pieces in there actually those are like the ends of the shallots. There is a slight brownness to it but that’s going to work out because that will all bleed into the liquid that we’re putting in there and it will be very – you wont be notice it once we’re finish. Okay, liquid is done. Important! Stir it. You don’t have to sit there and constantly stir because any ultimately just break it down. But you want to make sure that it cooks at the speed that you can control. Okay? Can you see it’s absorbing this? You don’t want to go to when it’s dry because then you have to keep reworking that. So this is perfect time to add a third and again you want to bring it to that same original just a little bit more, same original amount of liquid, so it’s looks just like we had it before. Now, you see a slight foaminess to that that’s because it’s reacting with the Asti Spumante. It works it right out. By the time we finish that, that would be incorporated into that creamy texture we’re working for and it’s incredible. I'm going to add some more liquid. I don’t season until towards the end because if you season at too much in the beginning and you keep reducing the flavors everything intensifies and there's no resurrecting that, so it safe to do that at the end. We leave them on risotto it’s going to take between 15 and 18 minutes. And again, I'm not stirring it I'm just trying to keep it from drying and sticking because any of that would cause a change in the colors. All right, this our third and final addition. Have you been counting? I saw you have a little score sheet there. Okay. Now, we’re going to add that just a little bit more than I expected but it’s good for insurance. I may still need that. Okay, we’re going to stir that in and we’re going to start getting scampi ready. I like to slice it. You should never brown the garlic but I think it’s almost a must to give it a nice gold tense to it because that gives you all the flavors. And we actually the restaurant we double blanch the garlic meaning we take it and put it in boiling water. Bring the water to a boil dump it out, put it back and let it boils again, dump it out. Then we take it and coat it with olive oil, fresh pepper, crack pepper and fresh thyme and then roast the gloves in the oven. They don’t burn, they’ll brown and caramelized but they don’t get that black hard crush to them. And you can just use it just when you serve bread to the table just serve a little plate of the garlic gloves and then use it like butter they just spread that garlic on the bread, it excellent. You see how we’re getting there. You notice we don’t have a lot of—actually it looks darker there than it—that’s a perfect. You see the color there that’s white, that’s what we’re looking for. Okay. We’re going to—I say liberally salt and pepper the scampi. Now, it’s taking me a lot longer to do this then it will you when you're doing because unless you have all these people in your house and you have to talk to them. But I'm trying to make sure that we take it slow enough. Now, what I'm going to do now is I'm going to drop the temperature down and this is going to continue to absorb the liquid. It’s going to continue to cook but you notice the creaminess to it. Can you see that? We haven’t even added the butter yet. I know we used low fat milk but we can finish it with butter. All right, I got a nice hot pan. This cook fast, this is going to be a quick process now, this is when you have to pay attention to what you're doing try not to – we want a nice all pink color. We going to turn those and if you notice I don’t have the garlic in yet because I don’t want to have it burn. But we’re going to add the garlic next. Can you see the color on those? Now we get a little brown going here color on that, the shrimp are just now starting to penetrate, the heat starting to penetrate. All right, this—I am going to gives that last just so we can kind of put this whole thing together at the same time. Let's throw in the pees. Pees are like sponges they’ll suck up any flavors so if you have a beautifully season dish and you cook pees in it that’s going to suck all that out of it. So use peace like you would chop parsley. You see the color in that? And the citrus hasn’t diminish it all you still have that essence of citrus and we’re still going to put in—okay now, we’re going to heat with my white wine. Lemon juice and I like to add zest to this. I've also got a little bit of tomato puree like I'd said before just to give it a little texture to the sauce. And some fresh tomato and I'm going to take some fresh basil. Don’t be afraid of the basil. All right, we’re not trying to cook it all out we’re just trying to get all of those flavors infuse there. I'm going to take some butter to finish my risotto. Okay, have you notice the creaminess in that? All right, little restaurant, in here—no cheese in this recipe, butter to finish and then use the shrimp to agitate the emulsification.