About ThymeLemon Thyme Risotto With Shrimp & Lobster

Still looking for dishes I can prepare one-handed, I’ve been coming up, well, empty-handed.

So I’m enlisting friends and family for one day a week to be my two-handed sous chef. It doesn’t pay anything but you get some tasty food to take home. With the exception of chopping onions and garlic, I almost could have done this myself. No. wait, bread slicing, pot-pouring...nevermind.

INGREDIENTS

4 cups reduced-sodium chicken broth

1 small onion, finely chopped

2 cloves minced garlic

4 tablespoons unsalted butter, divided

1¼ cups Arborio rice

1 1/2 cups sparkling wine/champagne*

½ cup Meyer lemon juice**

¾ pound medium shrimp, peeled and deveined

½ pound lobster meat

1 tablespoon grated lemon zest

¼ cup grated Parmesan

2 tablespoons fresh thyme

METHOD

*You can substitute a dry white wine if you don’t have any sparkling around. But it was more fun for my sous chef and me to sip as we were cooking

**You can use regular lemons, but I love the slightly-less-acidic Meyer lemons for this.

Bring broth to a simmer in a medium saucepan. Keep broth at a bare simmer, covered.

Cook onion in 2 tablespoons butter with ¼ teaspoon salt in a 4-quart heavy saucepan over medium heat, stirring occasionally, until softened, about 5 minutes.

Add rice and cook, stirring constantly, 1 minute. Add champagne and lemon juice and simmer, stirring constantly, until absorbed.

Stir in ½ cup broth mixture and briskly simmer, stirring frequently, until absorbed. Continue adding broth, ½ cup at a time, stirring frequently and letting each addition be absorbed before adding the next, until rice is creamy and tender but still al dente (it should be the consistency of a thick soup), about 18 minutes.

Stir in shrimp and lobster and cook until just cooked through, adding more broth as needed, 2 to 3 minutes.

Stir in zest, thyme, remaining 2 tablespoons butter, Parmesan.

Salt and pepper to taste. (Thin risotto with some of remaining broth if necessary.)

A drier Prosecco would probably be okay to pair with this, but I opened up a bottle of Trimbach Gewurztraminer, which I enjoyed.

Sign up sheets for volunteer sous chefs will be posted at the Weekly office.

Did I mention there would be food? And wine?