"Risotto alla marinara (fish dish)"

By now we are accustomed to think to rice like a typical of Valle Padana cereal but history shows that rice’s itineraries were different from the imaginable ones. Native from India, it was a common presence on the tables of Chinese, Phoenicians, Hebrews some centuries before Christ. To Europe it come through Sicily where it was of course imported by Arabs. On the Isle it was cultivated in the marshes of the southern level side and just in the XVI century it won the low lands of the Valle Padana. The “Risotto alla marinara” let us find it in Sicily.

Ingredients

For 6 servings:
500 gr rice
1/2 liter vegetal broth
50 g. butter
1/2 onion
300 gr mussels
500 gr sea clams
300 gr shrimps without shell
1 cleaned calamary
500 gr pelati tomatoes
4 garlic’s cloves.

Preparation
Prepare two pots, putting in each of them 3 spoons of oil and 2 crushed garlic’s cloves. Wash the mussels in salted water together with the sea clams. In the meantime put one of the two pots on the flame and let cook the garlic avoiding to make it dark. After that, put the mussels and the sea clams in it and stir till they open. Wet with a part of the wine and make it evaporate. Take off the mussels from the shell and put it away, then filter its cooking broth. In the meanwhile cut the calamary by small pieces and put them together with the shrimps in the other pot. Now add the strained tomatoes and let it cook for 15 minutes on a moderated heat. Add the sea clams, the mussels and its broth. Stir, pepper and simmer for more 15 minutes with a very low flame. Put on the fire a pot with butter and very thin minced onion and make it brown, sprinkling the remaining wine. Add the rice and let it cook adding from time to time the broth. A little before the cooking time, add the sauce and continue until the complete cooking. Finally, spread over with the minced parsley.