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Risotto Nero.

I know I have blogged about this before but we took advantage of the fact that Martha was at a party to enjoy this very particular dish on Saturday night. Even Gus, who doesn't really like fish enjoyed this. The ink imparts a delicious depth of flavour to the dish.
The recipe below is from the first River Cafe book. We added finely chopped onion to the garlic and cooked until soft to start the risotto off and as well as the chopped squid we added some flash fried prawns too.
We all ended slightly black toothed but very happy.

Ingredients

1L fish stock (qv)
sea salt and freshly ground black pepper
75g butter
4 cloves garlic peeled and finely chopped
300g risotto rice
120ml wine
3 sachets squid or cuttlefish ink
2 tbspns finely chopped flat leaf parsley

Method

Heat fish stock and check for seasoning.
Melt the butter in a saucepan and fry the garlic for 1 minute.
Add the rice and continue to cook gently stirring for a further minute.
Pour in the white wine and cook until it has been absorbed by the rice.
Add a ladle of the fish stock stirring continually until it too has been absorbed.
Continue to add more dish stock until the rice is al dente then add the squid ink.
When there is only one ladle of stock left turn off the heat and add this remaining stock.
Stir in the parsley and season with salt and pepper.

Variations:
Add about 450g small squid hand size.
Clean (qv) and cut the body sacs into thin talgiatelle type strips and seperate the tentacles.
Heat 1 tablespoon olive oil until very hot throw in the squid pieces and stiry fry for no more than 30 seconds.
Remove and season.
Make the risotto as above using an extra clove of garlic.
Add the squid to the risotto as you stir in the squid ink.

This Recipe Serves 4 ... they say 6 but as a main course its definitely 4
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Comments

Elizabeth Sweeney said…
I hope there wasn't the same song and dance searching for squid ink that there was one other time I remember quite clearly....Lisa running from Waitrose to Sainsburys and back again like a headless chicken!
September 30, 2009 at 4:58 PM
Barry said…
there definitely was .... but it involved Carluccios and the fishmongers too
September 30, 2009 at 5:03 PM
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