Juniper Berry Risotto with St.Jacques and Vongole

My colleague gave me a cook book with tea recipes. But not how to make a great tea, but how to cook with different kinds of tea.
This weekend I finally find the time to get started with it. It took me a while to decide what to cook, there are so many tasty recipes in. First, do I want to cook with black or white or green tea, hmm or with a fruity tea or with a herbal infusion.
Decisions decisions and  more decisions.

I start with a herbal infusion- because I wanted to eat some risotto today. I was grocery shopping at our Rewe Center and went to the fishmonger to get some St.Jacques and Vongole verachi and found fresh Samfire, I couldn´t resist. It is a pretty fast dish, when  you plan ahead and start the Juniper Berry Infusion 3 hours before you start to cook the risotto.

recipe:
600 ml water
2 tbsp crushed Juniper Berries
cooked for 20 minutes and then let it sit for 2 hours. Pour through a sieve and then reheat the infusion to add to the risotto.

Juniper  Berry Infusion

150 g Vialone Risotto rice
6 St.Jacques Mussels
12 Vongole verachi
3 tbsp Pecoriono
2 tbsp butter
2 tbsp oil
1 tbsp  flour
1 small onion
2 cloves of garlic
1 spring onion
50 ml white wine and some for the mussels
salt and pepper
1 small head of radicchio
50 g Samfire
1/2 lemon juice
1 tbsp dark sesame oil
salt and pepper

ingredients

cook the risotto for 20 minutes

Start with the Risotto:
chop the onion and one clove of garlic and  2 leaves of the radicchio. In one tbsp butter and one tbsp oil start to fry that off, then add the rice and give it a good coating. Add the white wine and wait until it is gone. Then start to ladle Juniper Berry Infusion one after an other until the rice is cooked. don`t forget to stir.

Start with the Mussels:
wash the Vongole and chop the spring onion and the other clove of garlic. In some oil fry that off and add some white wine and put the Mussels in. Close the lid and it takes about 3 minutes until the Vongole are done.
Pat the St.Jacques dry and season them, put them through the flour and in a bit of hot oil cook them on each side for 1 minute, take them out of the pan and put some radicchio leaves in to wilt them down.

Wash the Samfire, add the lemon Juice and the sesame oil and season with pepper. Bring everything together and have a great meal.