A Fishy Sunday

I love fish. I really cant get enough of it. Big fish, little fish (and i'm not talking about the dance), flat fish, river fish- I love it all. However, having grown up in Norfolk and been lucky enough to have a mum that shared my love, I only want fish that's literally still flipping. So when on school holidays (the perks of being teacher is that I have blimmin 13 weeks a year, woop) I often find myself at Fish which is just past Hove lagoon.
Fish is a fishy heaven- Nemo and Flounder pray to end up here one day. The fish is glossy, the eyes are so clear they wink at you and better yet no pong. The guys and gals who work there are very informed and friendly. Recently I cooked a scrum seafood linguini with big old prawns, clams and mussels-very nice. But the 13 week holiday margin doesn't satisfy my fishy cravings enough so I decided so get a bag of their frozen fruit de mer for my times in need.

So on this glorious Sunday, having felt so guilty about seeing the marathon runners passing I had an apple for breakfast rather than a fry up, I had a fishy craving. I had some stock left over in the freezer from cooking lobster for the boy on Valentines and the shells so I decided on a risotto.
Dipping further into the depths of my fridge (sometimes a very dangerous thing to do) I found some tarragon and tomatoes, so decided to lob these in to.



Seafood Risotto (serves 1 greedy boy and 1 greedy girl)

Half a bag of fruit de mer
Couple of handfuls of arborio rice
1 onion finely diced
2 garlic cloves
tarragon
basil (about 2 tbsp of both herbs but parsley would also be lovely)
handful of cherry tomatoes
glass of wine
stock ( I used left over lobster stock which I boiled up with some shells to intensify the flavour)
spinach


What you need to do!

Sweat the onion till soft and lovely in a bit of olive oil

Add the rice and give a good stir to coat the grains in the oil. Add the wine and let it have a good old bubble

When the wine has cooked into the rice, add a ladle of hot stock. Turn down the heat to a simmer so the rice doesn't cook too quickly on the outside. Keep adding ladles of stock, stirring the creamy starch out of the rice.

At some point throw the garlic and tomatoes in and then carry on adding the stock until rice is cooked ( I find this is a little personal- I like mine to have a very slight bite).

Because I was using frozen seafood I added it just before the end of cooking so it could literally defrost and cook- nothing worse then over cooked seafood!

Then stir in the herbs and a good knob of butter and some parmesan, then leave to rest for a few minutes. This little tip is what turns a bog standard risotto into a pretty sexy, oozing goddess of a risotto!



Now, I admit, frozen seafood was really useful to have BUT I did find the mussels a bit dirty and you do lose the amazing liquor that you get from using fresh. If given the option I would always use fresh.