Shrimp Risotto with Parsley and Asparagus

This was a bit chaotic. Usuallly, on Fridays my husband and I forfeit dinner for booze. We just get olives and cheese and nibbles and a good amount of alcohol and hang out and drink. Today, however, I neglected to eat lunch, and as I was getting ready to head out from work, I got really hungry. I decided I needed a shrimp risotto, which is a weird thing to need, but there we have it. I found this recipe, and printed it and drove home as fast as I could (safely). Really excited about dinner and booze.

I ran to the supermarket on the way home. They have good fresh shrimp, a fabulous grocery section and I had seen arborio rice there recently. However, today they were out of arugula, lemons and fennel. Flipping irritating. I buy the other things I need and dash to another supermarket a few miles away. They are also out of fennel and arugula only comes in a packet with spinach. Fuck it. I got the lemons, I skipped the fennel, and I used a large bunch of curly parsley and some asparagus in place of the arugula. I was winging it.

When I get home, super keen to get on with dinner, I ask my son to help with the shrimp. I am not patient enough to do the shrimp first, and then start the onions and rice, so he peels the shrimp, while I start the ball rolling on the risotto. About five shrimp in, he has a funny turn and needs to lie down. I cannot stir risotto and peal shrimp and chop onions and garlic all at the same time. chaos ensued. Dinner went a bit like this.

First I made three cups of chicken stock. Second, I sauteed an onion in some olive oil and then added the garlic and the rice. I used a lot more rice than I was supposed to, probably about two cups, maybe more, so I added a whole glass of white wine, and upped the amount of stock. Once the wine was absorbed I added the stock little-by-little as it got absorbed in the rice (I kept adding stock until the very end when the rice was cooked). Then I chopped the parsley very finely and stirred it into the rice. It added a good green tint. Then, I added the juice of two pretty small lemons and the zest from both lemons. As the liquid was slowly sinking into the rice, I fried the shrimp in olive oil in a separate pan and then put them to one side. Then I put a little water in the shrimp pan, and about two teaspoons of butter and I cooked a bunch of asparagus (chopped into 2cm pieces). When this was cooked, I added it (and the buttery water) to the rice. Then I stirred in the shrimp, seasoned and ate.

It was good. Very flavorsome and the lemon gave it a good fresh summery taste. Would eat again.