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Risotto with Lobster
(Risotto coi gamberi) For this risotto either lobster or crab meat can be used: the former is, however, considered more tasty. The lobster or crab meat ought to be about half the weight of the rice employed. A little more than a pound of rice and half this weight of crab meat ought to be enough for six persons.
Chop fine a sprig of parsley, a stalk of celery, one carrot, half an onion a clove of garlic and brown the whole in good olive oil. When browned, add the crab meat and season with salt and pepper. During the cooking process stir and turn over the crabs, and when they have become red, pour over as much hot water as is necessary to cook the rice.
After the water boils for a while, remove the lobster (or crab, or craw-fish) leaving the saucepan on the fire. Put half of the crabs aside, and grind the rest. Rub the ground meat through the sieve and put it back on the fire. In another saucepan melt some butter and put into it little by little the rice that has been washed and dried.
Stir and add the broth from the first saucepan.
When the rice is almost cooked add the craw-fish that you have put aside, or rather its meat extracted from the shells, take from the fire and pour over it the fish mixture, adding some grated cheese. 26
The method here is sound and still worth following: the crustacean shells make the cooking liquid, and half the meat is pounded and sieved back in as a finishing paste. A few of the quantities and translations need attention.
- What "gamberi" actually meansThe Italian title says gamberi — shrimp, prawns or crayfish — not lobster. The translator's heading is loose, and the text itself wanders between lobster, crab and crawfish. Any of them works; whole shell-on shrimp or crayfish are closest to the original intent and give the best broth.
- Quantity of rice"A little more than a pound of rice" for six is a generous 19th-century portion — roughly 2 1/2 cups dry, or 75-80 g per person. Modern risotto is usually built on 60 g (about 1/3 cup) per person, so scale to about 12 oz rice with 6 oz picked meat if you want six ordinary servings.
- The rice to useAn Italian book of this date assumes a short, starchy round rice; use Arborio, Carnaroli or Vialone Nano. Long-grain rice will not give the creamy body the method depends on.
- Skip the washing"Rice that has been washed and dried" may reflect an era when rice arrived dustier and less well sorted. Washing strips the surface starch that thickens a risotto — go straight from the packet into the butter and toast the grains until translucent at the edges.
- The hinge: the shell brothEverything rests on the liquid. Brown the soffritto, add the shellfish in their shells, and only add water once they have turned red and given up their juices; let that simmer long enough to taste of shellfish before you begin ladling. Water added too early gives a pale, watery risotto.
- Don't overcook the reserved meatThe half you set aside goes in near the end for good reason. Shrimp and crayfish tails need only a minute or two of residual heat; returned to the pan early they turn cottony.
- The sieved paste"Grind the rest" and "rub through a sieve" means pounding the cooked meat, and ideally some of the softer shell, to a paste and forcing it through a fine sieve — a food processor plus a chinois does the same work. Stir it in off the heat so it stays fresh-tasting.
- The cheeseGrated Parmesan with shellfish is now frowned on in much of Italy, but this book asks for it and it is period-correct. Use a light hand, or leave it out and finish with cold butter instead.
- TimingNo times are given anywhere. Reckon 17-20 minutes from the first ladle of broth, adding it a little at a time and stirring, until the grains are tender with a firm centre.
This comes from Maria Gentile's The Italian Cook Book (1919), one of a wave of English-language Italian cookbooks published in New York for a readership newly curious about the food of a very large immigrant population. Many of its recipes appear to derive from Pellegrino Artusi's La scienza in cucina e l'arte di mangiar bene, and the translation shows the strain: gamberi becomes "lobster" in the title and shuffles between crab and crawfish in the text, as though the translator were offering whatever an American market might stock. The technique, though, is thoroughly traditional — build a broth from the shells, pound part of the meat into a paste to enrich the finish, and keep the rest whole for texture. That double use of one ingredient is still how a good shellfish risotto is made.