Seafood Risotto - Finishing the Dish

Davide Megna: I am Davide Megna with Amici Miei Ristorante in Rockville, Maryland. I am showing you how to make seafood risotto today and the risotto is almost fully cooked. I am going to try to make sure -- very good, it's al dente, but it still needs a couple of minutes. So right now we are going to add the last ingredients, the shrimps, the mussels and the clams. We are going to keep cooking it until these last ingredients, well, the mussels and the clams are already cooked, the shrimps need just a couple of minutes to cook. We add those ingredients at the end so they would not get tough and overcooked. Shrimps are very delicate, if they get overcooked, they get really, really tough. At this point, we can also add salt and pepper. I wait at the end because that way I don't take a chance to make the risotto too salty. If you add your salt in the beginning then by reducing the broth, the salt may get too concentrated and ruin your risotto. So we wait to do that at the -- almost at the very end. You also want to be careful because juices released from the mussels and clams tend to be salty. So you don't need really too much salt at the end. So be careful. Try it before -- taste the risotto before you add in salt and pepper and that way, you can know exactly how much salt you like. Now the risotto is almost ready. We are going to finish it with a little bit of fresh, finely chopped Italian parsley. I like to use Italian parsley because it has a much more flavor, it's not just for looks, than regular parsley and then at the very end, a touch of more, a touch of extra virgin olive oil that will make your risotto nice and shiny. Okay and your risotto is ready and now we are getting ready to serve our risotto into a plate. That's how you make seafood risotto.