What's Cooking?

IN autumn 2010 Lukas Pfaff joined Savile Row’s Sartoria as head chef from Il Convivio, a fine-dining, Italian restaurant in London’s Belgravia. And before that he worked alongside Marco Pierre White as his chef de partie at the three Michelin starred The Restaurant. So needless to say, Pfaff has got pedigree – and then some. This week he shares the recipe for one of his delicious creations with London Confidential readers, and with any luck it’s what your having for dinner.

SEAFOOD RISOTTO WITH TOMATOES ESSENCE

Serves 6 as a starter, 3 as a main course.

500 g vialone nano rice

1 kg mixed mature tomatoes for the essence

1 L veggie stock

2 fresh squid, cleaned and cut into strips

6 Mediterranean prawns, cleaned and shelled apart from the heads

1 lobster tail blanched and shelled

200 g clams, cleaned and cooked off

200 g mussels, cleaned and cooked off

80 g hand picked spider crab meat

1/2 a bunch of wild fennel, finely diced

Butter

Olive oil

Salt and pepper

First make tomato essence. Take a kilo of overripe Italian tomatoes, ideally riccio fiorentina variety, gently simmer in vegetable stock for 15 minutes. Strain through a muslin cloth gently and extract every last drop from them, squeezing the muslin at the end if necessary. This should yield at least 1 litre of tomato essence.

Start the risotto by toasting the rice in olive oil in a tall pot until slightly translucent at the edges of each grain. De-glaze with some of the tomato essence, add a good pinch of salt and start moving the rice around the pot with a spatula. Meanwhile sear the seafood in a very hot pan with olive oil and put to one side.

Add the diced fennel and continue to cook over medium heat topping up the essence as necessary, like a normal risotto. Half way through the rice’s cooking time add the seafood to the pot continue stirring gently until nearly all of the liquid has evaporated. Set aside. Add cold diced butter, roughly 170gr in total, and allow to rest with a plate on the top of the pan for 10 seconds, finish by quickly and gently folding the butter into the risotto. Check seasoning and serve immediately. This dish is good for four served at the table from the pan.

This meal is very light for risotto, but still full of depth and healthy lean protein.