Creamy garlic yabby risotto

We're blessed, now that we're back in Canberra, to be within day-trip distance to my husband's family farm - which is located at Yalbraith, in NSW.

With so much work on at the moment, I was really pleased when on Thursday afternoon Clinton announced he was going to take the girls for a trip to the farm on Friday night and Saturday.
Heaven! A night alone in front of the TV (and Facebook - Little Toot Creations raised almost $1000 for the Centre for Newborn Care) followed by a whole day of uninterrupted sewing!

But I digress.

When they arrived home on Saturday afternoon Clinton and the girls were so excited to announce they'd been 'yabbying' and had brought home dinner. They had 17 of these little fellas...

So, what does one create with a bucketful of yabbies?

Well, I decided on a creamy garlic yabby risotto, loosely based on this recipe from Best Recipes.

Creamy Garlic Yabby Risotto

Ingredients

2 tbsp olive oil

1 onion, chopped

4 cloves garlic, crushed

1 tsp mustard powder

1 1/2 cups arborio rice

3 cups hot chicken stock

1 cup white wine

1 cup peas (we were lucky to have fresh but frozen will do)

Cracked black pepper

Chopped parsley

50g butter

80ml cream

20 freshwater yabbies

Shaved parmesan, to serve

I was lucky to have yabbies that had already been cooked (but otherwise just pop them into boiling water for a few minutes). Remove the flesh from within the shells (a hammer came in handy for this job).

While Clinton worked on the yabbies, I prepared the risotto. Brown your onion and garlic in a little oil in a heavy-based pan. Add mustard powder and rice and stir to coat. Gradually add your chicken stock a ladel at a time until absorbed. Do the same with your white wine. We added our peas along with the stock, as they were fresh and needed extra cooking.

If your rice is still a little firm, add some more liquid.

Once cooked, stir through your butter, cream, parsley and cracked pepper.

Finally, heat a little oil in a separate pan and fry off your yabby meat until heated and a little bit coloured.

Serve your risotto with yabby meat on top and a sprinkle of parmesan.

And for dessert... we had fresh-picked blackberries and icecream.