Crab Risotto
Jan 30th, 2012 | By Hank Shaw | Category: Fish, Italian, Pasta, Risotto, Gnocchi, Recipe | Comments | 9 Comments |
Photo by Holly A. Heyser
Seafood risottos are one of the great joys in life, especially when they are made with fresh stock and fresh ingredients. Unlike terrestrial meats and stocks, those made with the fruits of the sea are zephyrs: Make them, enjoy them, and move on. They don’t store well at all.
I make this risotto to celebrate our Dungeness crab season, but you could use blue crabs in the East, Jonah or stone crabs — even snow or king crab meat. And yes, you could use lobster, too.
The key here is good stock. You should make crab stock special for this recipe, but you could use a high-quality fish stock instead. If you don’t have access to either, use good vegetable stock, or even water. One note: If you use a salty broth or stock, taste the risotto as you go, and switch to water once the dish is salty enough for you.
As for the rice, you must use risotto rice; long-grain will not work. As this is a seafood risotto, use Vialone nano if you can find it; it is especially good with crab, fish and shellfish. Arborio or Carnaroli rice is fine, though.
Serves 4.
Prep Time: 10 minutes
Cook Time: 35 minutes
- 2 cups risotto rice (Vialone nano, Arborio, Carnaroli)
- 4 garlic cloves, chopped
- 2 tablespoons olive oil
- 1 heaping tablespoon tomato paste
- 1/3 cup Marsala, or white wine
- 1 cup chopped parsley
- 1-2 cups crab meat
- 5-7 cups crab stock, fish stock or vegetable stock
- Salt
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- Pour the stock into a pot and bring to a bare simmer.
- Heat the olive oil in another pot over medium-high heat for a minute or two. Add the garlic, rice and tomato paste and stir-fry them until the garlic just begins to brown.
- Pour in the Marsala and stir vigorously. It will combine with the tomato paste to make a thick slurry, so start pouring in your crab stock, 1/2 cup at a time. Stir well to combine.Sprinkle a little salt over everything now — unless your stock is already salty.
- Stirring constantly, let the liquid evaporate. When the pot is nearly dry, add another half cup of hot stock. Keep doing this for about 15-20 minutes, until the rice is al dente.
- Once the rice is cooked, add a little more stock, the parsley and the crab meat and stir to combine. Turn the heat to low and stir until the crab is heated through. Serve at once.
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I’m in Maryland, so I will make this risotto with blue crabs (the sustainable choice for me–although I adore Dungeness crabs). This is an elegant way to serve crabs and particularly to guests that don’t care for the painstakingly sweet work of picking and scraping for their meat. Beautiful photo!
Coming from the Midwest, I did not consider myself a huge fan of crab. But, I was once stuck in an Alaskan Forest Service cabin for a week because of torrential rains and gale force winds, and had little else to eat besides emergency dried foods.
But we did have a couple of crab traps, and managed to catch a couple of Irish Lords for bait. Though it was hard work to make it out to the dock – the winds were really that bad – I have never seen so many Dungeness crab in my life. After boiling and eating our fill, we put a pie tin full of crab meat into a dried pasta y fagioli soup mix, and let me tell you, it was awesome!
One more story – These cabins have log books. This one told the story of a bear coming and scratching all around the cabin. The line that made me laugh until I cried was, “Scream? … I thought my husband would never stop!”
Thanks, Hank, I hope to try your risotto recipe soon.
This looks so good I think I’ll make it this week. My favorite way to enjoy Dungeness crab, a true San Francisco treat, is simply with a light marinade of lemon, garlic, parsley & olive oil. This marinade preference just might be the result of a childhood filled with many winter crab feeds.
OMG I could do with a big bowl of this right now! Bookmarked it for when I next trip over a crab ;o)
When it comes to risotto, it’s definitely all about the stock. I love me some good risotto though. Wow, that looks good. I will be keeping an eye on our fish stands since I’m on the East Coast and we have a different monster in our ocean. Thanks for a great recipe.
I made this recipe from your book last summer in Alaska. Fresh stock, fresh crab, there’s nothing like it. That was my first experience with risotto and now we’re hooked!
Steve: Very cool story! I am assuming (hoping?) that the dude was screaming because it was a grizzly bear. It’s kinda unmanly to shriek over a black bear…
Food Lover: I like crab with olive oil, lemon and garlic, too, although I usually serve king crab that way.
Marcus: Glad you liked it!
I ache for Dungeness crab. I lived in Oregon for several years and couldn’t get enough of it. When I moved to the east coast I missed it, but could get it occasionally. In Sweden I am out of luck. In my opinion, nothing compares to it so I’ll have to wait to try this recipe until I’m back in the states sometime since the cost of lobster here is astronomical, at least 4x more for an American fished lobster and 6-8x more for a European one. Go figure.
I love your recipes Hank, but I have a shell to pick with this one. Agreed w/ quality stock and fresh crab. But for me, marsala is too cloying for crab. I would stick w/ a crisp white and one that you would be more than happy to drink. I also think a couple of smashed fennel seeds and a tiny bit of heat from a pepperoncino would be good along w/ only a few tablespoons of parsley. A cup makes it all about the parsley. Also, once the risotto is done, it should hardly be stirred at all. It would be better to heat the crab really gently over a low flame (w/a bit of butter or best quality olive oil) on it’s own before being added to the risotto to prevent over stirring. signed, nuts about risotto, Faye