Risotto Nero di Seppie con Crema di Burrata

Ingredients

• 600 g Vialone Nano or Carnaroli rice
• 800 g cuttlefish, cleaned; tentacles and body reserved separately; ink sac carefully extracted and kept intact
• 1.5 litres fish stock, made from prawn shells and fish bones
• 4 tbsp extra-virgin olive oil, for soffritto
• For the soffritto
• 1 medium white onion, finely chopped
• 2 cloves garlic, finely chopped
• 4 ink sacs cuttlefish ink, extracted from the cuttlefish; kept intact until use
• 300 g burrata, at room temperature
• to taste Cervia sea salt, a few grains for finishing on the burrata at service

Method

1. 1
   Clean the cuttlefish, extracting the ink sacs carefully and setting them aside intact, so the metallic-oceanic freshness locked inside each sac is not lost to premature dispersal. Separate the tentacles from the body and reserve both. Work slowly here — a punctured sac cannot be recovered.
2. 2
   Warm the olive oil in a wide, heavy pan over a medium flame and add the onion and garlic, cooking the soffritto slowly until the onion is soft, translucent and without colour, so no caramel sweetness competes with the sea. Use olive oil throughout rather than butter, so the seafood character of the dish carries cleanly from the first ladle to the last.
3. 3
   Add the cuttlefish body and tentacles to the soffritto and sauté briefly until the flesh turns opaque and firms at the edges. Remove the tentacles now and reserve them for the garnish, so they do not toughen during the long rice cooking that follows; leave the body pieces in the pan.
4. 4
   Add the rice and toast it, stirring, until each grain is coated in the oil and translucent at its edges, so the outer surface can absorb stock gradually without the centre cooking ahead of it. Begin adding the fish stock ladle by ladle, stirring continuously and letting each addition be absorbed before the next — fish stock exclusively, so no poultry note intrudes on the oceanic character of the dish.
5. 5
   Five minutes before service — and not before — break the ink sacs into the risotto and stir to distribute, so the ink retains its depth and vibrancy rather than collapsing into a flat, dull note as it would if added at the start. This is where the dish lives or dies: the rice will turn uniformly and dramatically black. Continue cooking only until the ink is fully incorporated and the rice reaches the al dente stage — firm at the centre, fluid enough to flow slowly when the pan is tilted.
6. 6
   Return the reserved tentacles briefly to the pan to warm through, then plate the black risotto in four shallow bowls. Place a quenelle of room-temperature burrata at the centre of each portion, so its cream is loose enough to migrate into the risotto as diners stir — that slow transformation at the table is part of the dish. Scatter a few grains of Cervia sea salt over the burrata to finish.