Crawfish and Asparagus Saffron Risotto

After my trip home this past weekend, I brought back a lot of crawfish (thanks Mom and Dad!!). So what to do with so much crawfish in your freezer, one might ask. Since I love risotto, and I love crawfish, I decided to merge these two loves together into an awesome recipe. I got the idea to add asparagus from Food Network, but basically made the risotto the same as I usually do (which, I realize I've never posted about before, so I guess this will be the introduction to it).


Ingredients:

• 1-2 lbs crawfish, peeled and cleaned
• 10 stalks asparagus, roasted (see below) and cut into ~1/2 inch pieces
  
• 4 cups chicken stock
• 1 cup water
• 1 tbsp olive oil
• 2 pinches saffron
  
• 1 clove garlic
• 1/2 medium onion, chopped
• 2 cups arborio rice
• 1 cup white wine
  
• 1 tbsp butter
  
• 1 cup parmesan cheese
  
• Salt and pepper, to taste
  

Method:

• First, heat up the crawfish to warm, and roast the asparagus (cut into pieces, drizzle with olive oil and season with salt and pepper, and bake 10-12 mins at 400F).
  
• Place chicken stock and water in a medium pot, heat to boiling and then cover and reduce to low. (I like to put one or two pieces of whatever I am making the risotto out of into the chicken stock for added flavor - for this recipe 2-3 pieces of crawfish. Also, I put some saffron into the stock also).
  
• While the stock heats up, put the olive oil in a large saucepan and cook over medium heat.
  
• Once the oil starts to ripple, add saffron, garlic, and onions and cook until transparent, about 2 mins.
• Add the rice, and let toast about 2 mins.
• Pour in the white wine and let cook down.
• Slowly ladle in the chicken stock, just covering the rice, and let cook down. Repeat about 3-4 times, or until the stock is gone (estimated 18 mins). The rice should be very tender at this point; if not, add more stock/water.
• During the last 3 mins or so of cook time, add in the crawfish, asparagus, butter, and parmesan cheese. Stir and serve!

Overall I think it turned out very well, except the crawfish was so spicy it kinda drowned out the other flavors. I will have to experiment to see how to get good crawfish that isn't overpoweringly-spicy.