Squid or calamari risotto is very delicate in taste, yet flavoursome, hearty and filling, very quick and easy to make, which makes it a perfect choice for a light lunch or dinner and a staple mid-week dish.

This risotto is an absolute winner, it will delight the whole family, and it is very pleasant to eat with its creamy texture and sweet and tender squid. It is simply delicious, and it is packed with Mediterranean ingredients that recall holidays by the sea.

I grew up on this type of risotto, it has been made in my family since as long as I can remember. My mother told me I was partially weaned on this risotto, she obviously made sure the squid chunks were cut in miniscule pieces to make it safe for me to eat. I loved it, apparently, and I still do.

The frequency with which this risotto, among many other types of risotti, has been made should come as no surprise. The area where I was born and grew up, the Slovenian coast, it is just under two hours drive from northern region of Veneto in Italy, where the greatest number and variety of risotto recipes can be found.

Squid risotto is very often prepared and cooked in the households, and regularly printed on the menus in the local restaurants, where you will find it as Rižota s kalamari or Rižota z lignji.

I am sharing here my mother's recipe, and do not be put off by the task of cleaning the squid, ask your fishmonger to do it for you and try this fantastic risotto dish.

Ingredients

Serves 4

500g roughly, fresh squid, cleaned and cut into smaller pieces or rings (keep the tentacles). For this recipe you can also use frozen raw already cleaned squid tubes available in most bigger supermarkets.
1 small onion (about 80g), peeled and finely chopped
1 clove garlic, peeled and crushed
4 Tbsp extra virgin olive oil
1 Tbsp tomato purée
300g risotto rice (like Vialone Nano, Arborio or Carnaroli)
fresh flat leaf parsley, about a handful (roughly 8g), some extra for garnish
1 litre hot vegetable stock or hot water
sea salt
ground black pepper

Method

Before starting making risotto, it is a good idea to have your boiling hot stock or hot water ready to hand for later.

Put extra virgin olive oil in a pan, add finely chopped onions and sauté on a gentle heat until soft.

Add crushed garlic and cook for about a minute together with the onions.

Place clean pieces of squid in a pan and cook for about three minutes or so, until opaque.

Add the rice, mix well with the onion, garlic and squid mixture, and toast it for few minutes stirring constantly to avoid sticking to the pan.

Add tomato purée, pour in the pan all the hot stock or hot water and add chopped parsley.

If you have made a risotto before and have a clear idea of how moist you like it to be, you can control the moisture of the risotto by gradually adding ladles of hot stock or water, one at a time, allowing the liquid to be absorbed before adding more, rather than pouring the whole quantity of liquid over toasted rice, like I did in this recipe.

Cook on a medium heat, stirring almost constantly, until the rice is cooked al dente (fully cooked but still firm when bitten). It will generally take about 15-18 minutes for a risotto to be cooked.

There should be enough liquid just to cover the risotto, the Italians say that risotto should be smooth and runny enough to be described as all'onda, on the wave. Quite right, eating dry risotto is not particularly enjoyable.

Taste and adjust the seasoning with sea salt and ground pepper.

Serve hot and garnish with roughly chopped fresh flat parsley.

Just a thought

You can add to the risotto a small amount of chilli to give it an extra kick, but in small amounts, as you do not want to overpower the delicate flavour of the squid and of the dish in general.

Wine suggestion

Colli di Luni Vermentino “Etichetta Nera” 2021 - Lunae

Bread dumplings are a real crowd pleaser, they are made from a mixture of stale bread soaked in milk and combined with fresh parsley, marjoram, onions, pancetta, beaten egg, seasoned with sea salt and black pepper, then formed into a ball shape and gently cooked in simmering water.

They can be easily turned into a vegetarian friendly option by simply omitting the meaty element and adding, if prefer, a bit of grated cheese, depending on your preference.

They are served as a perfect companion to stews, braised meats and roasted meats with a gravy. The idea behind these dumplings is to squash them with the fork, and this will soak up all the juices of whatever is accompanying them. In other words, it is an ideal side dish for almost anything that has some kind of sauce with it.

I simply love the recipes that provide some kind of a solution to the “problem” of avoiding food waste, and in this case the recipe is a brilliant side dish that uses - nothing more than stale bread as the key ingredient.

This is one of those recipes that you do not really need to plan since you can make bread dumplings when you simply end up with old bread and do not know what to do with it. If you have quite a bit of it to use up, then double or triple the ingredients since you can freeze a big batch of bread dumplings.

These rustic and elegant bread dumplings became a staple dish in a lot of cuisines of Eastern and Central Europe where stale bread has been very cleverly turned into a pure delicacy.

In Slovenia, where I was born and grew up, bread dumplings, called Kruhovi cmoki, have been so popular they almost became a national dish, and this recipe is most similar, or actually almost identical to the Austrian and South German( Bavarian) variety, where it is believed bread dumplings originated from, and are referred to as Semmelknödel.

There are a variety of bread dumpling recipes, for example, in the Czech Republic, fresh herbs, onions and the meaty element is not added to the bread mixture, which is also not shaped into small balls, but instead into a roll, then boiled and sliced.

Similar to bread dumplings are Canederli, found in Italy, in Trentino Alto Adige, an autonomous province of Italy, and in Austria, where small pieces of speck (lightly smoked cured meat) and cheese are added to the basic bread mixture, then they are shaped into small balls and typically cooked and served in hot beef or chicken broth.

This dish was one of my favourite dishes when I was a child, and it really does take me down memory lane. My mother would prepare them quite often, and I am sharing here her recipe, a typical Istrian variation of bread dumplings, in which fresh marjoram is added to the basic bread mixture.