Top Chef Tuesday is back! It’s been a while, but I thought I’d bring it back in the mix and I start with the basics, correcting the errors that occurred in Episode 1 of this season’s Top Chef World All Stars on Bravo! 2 critical errors had 2 separate cheftestants in the bottom 3 and 1 ended up going home. The first error I highlight is not cleaning your shrimp! No one wants to eat guts, let alone Top Chef judges. So, thinly slice down the back and pull out the brown intestinal tract. The second error was trying to cook risotto in a quickfire challenge, in less than 20 minutes. It’s never going to work, even when a legit Italian chef tries, so don’t you try it at home either.
So, what is risotto supposed to taste like? The texture should be slightly toothsome and super creamy. The flavor is all up to you. You can keep it plain: water and butter. But, why do that? You can go earthy with a mushroom stock. Since I was already showing you how to clean shrimp in this video, I married the two and made my shrimp stock and brightened it up with some lemon zest, parsley, and thyme. I even committed an Italian Culinary Cardinal Sin…I added cheese to my seafood. It’s ok, I lived to tell you about it. So, head on over to my YouTube Channel and see my full video and here’s the accompanying recipe below. In my exuberance, I forgot to take a still photo of the final dish, lol. I’ll remember next time!
Shrimp Risotto
I combine flavors of two homemade stocks, you can get more detail on those in the links below.
4 cups homemade chicken stock
4 cups homemade shrimp stock
6 tbsp butter, divided
Extra-virgin olive oil
1 small yellow onion, minced
1.5 cups arborio rice
~¼ cup white wine
~1 lb cleaned shrimp
Minced fresh parsley and thyme
Zest of 1 lemon, and a little juice
Parmigiano-Reggiano cheese
In a large sauté pan, over medium-high heat, melt 2 tbsp butter with an equal amount of evoo. Add in the onion with a pinch of salt and cook until just beginning to soften.
Stir in the rice and toast for about 1-2 minutes.
Pour in the wine and stir until evaporated. Then, add in all of the chicken stock at once, completely covering the rice. Season with some salt and stir.
Once the chicken stock has evaporated, add in 1 cup of water, followed by the shrimp stock, one cup at-a-time, not adding more until the prior amount has evaporated/been absorbed by the rice.
Once the rice is creamy and loses its raw flavor (you should have about a cup of stock left), add in the shrimp, a ladleful of the stock, and season with salt and pepper. Top off with 1 tbsp of butter and cover the pan. Cook for 2 minutes.
Remove the lid and stir the rice, adding in the very last of the stock, the remaining 3 tbsp of butter, the lemon zest and herbs, along with some grated cheese and a tbsp of evoo. Stir and taste, adding any additional lemon juice or salt and pepper.
Serve immediately and top with extra-virgin olive oil and a pinch of flaky sea salt. ______________________________ Copyright 2023, Brendan McCann, All Rights Reserved.
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