Risotto

While in Italy, we had risotto a few times and raved about it each time. The first time was during our stay in the agriturismo in Assisi.. Later, in Milan, our cousin Guido made risotto for us. This morning, over breakfast, Peter came up with the brilliant idea to make risotto for dinner tonight.
The grocery store had nice looking asparagus and shrimp, so we decided to add those to the risotto. We started with arborio rice. We sauted shallot in some butter. Then we added in the rice and stirred it until the rice became translucent. Once the rice had turned, we added about a cup of white wine (we used a chardonnay from Australia) and let it cook until the pan dried out. Then we added about 1.5 cups of homemade chicken stock. We let it simmer for about 10 minutes, stirring occasionally, until the stock had completely absorbed. After the initial stock, we added the rest in ladleful amounts, letting it absorb between each addition. Once the rice was almost done, we stirred in blanched asparagus and cooked shrimp. Then, after the rice had finished cooking and the asparagus/shrimp had heated through, we added parmesean.

Notes and Next Time

• Guido used red wine too
• peas might be nice
• saffron would be pretty
• cooked pancetta could add a nice flavor
• as could mushrooms
  

Ingredients/Recipe

• arborio rice
• broth
• shallot/garlic/onion
• butter
• asparagus
• shrimp (small bay or salad shrimp)
• white wine