Risotto for whisky lovers
Now for a dish for swells, or for those who have come into luck. It seems a remarkable mix — rice and whisky and crayfish —but it works wonderfully. The whisky seems to add guts to the crayfish, while surviving on its own; and yet it doesn’t affect the glories of the risotto. I pinched it from Bill Marchetti, the chef of Melbourne’s most popular Italian restaurant, the Latin. Marchetti, born in Germany of German-Italian parents, first saw this combination in the middle of Italy, liked it, filed it away, and serves it occasionally — usually to rave reviews.
2 onions, chopped roughly
virgin olive oil
2 cups Arborio rice
stock from the crayfish carcass, kept at a boil — You can do this with boiling water, at the worst, or vegetable stock, or fish stock.
1 crayfish, cooked for about 5 minutes per kg, so that it is undercooked — Remove the flesh from the carcass.
¼ cup Johnny Walker Red Label whisky
salt
black pepper
Parmesan
plenty of herbs, particularly parsley, chopped roughly
1
Cook the onions gently and briefly in the olive oil, until they change colour. Add the rice and coat the grains with the oil.
2
Add a ladle of boiling stock at a time, stirring through until absorbed. After the second addition, add a little of the crayfish chopped into smallish chunks and half the whisky, sticking your nose over the bowl so as not to waste any of that wonderful aroma. Some of the crayfish goes in early to cook down almost to disintegration, so it becomes very much part of the risotto as a powerful middle flavour. You will use somewhere between six and eight ladles, and it will take about 16 minutes until the rice is just done. It should have a pouring consistency, something like lava, and be slightly resistant to the bite.
3
When done, fold through the remaining crayfish flesh, leg meat included, and another good shot of whisky. Season.
4
Serve with Parmesan and sprinkle with freshly chopped herbs.
A good, cheap alternative to crayfish would be mussels, cooked and removed from their shells, and worked through the rice with a few minutes cooking to go. A not so cheap alternative would be scallops — and try them with Irish Whiskey!
WINE: This needs a cbardonnay that’s seen some excellent oak maturation to balance the oak flavours of the whisky. Try Mt Helen from Victoria or Tyrell’s Vat 47. Or just a dram of Highland Riesling!