Calderete of Rice with Allioli

It took us much longer than originally planned to prepare this dish, so beware. Of course, part of that was due to the fact that we had to scale and gut three sea basses (eeks!), something we had only done once, years earlier. But the risotto also took a lot more time to cook than expected. This could have been a problem as the fish had to be kept warm in the meantime, but luckily, all went well on this account.

All in all, it was a nice dish, but not as stunning as I had hoped. Perhaps our expectations had been exaggerated due to all the effort we had taken, but the dish just didn't match them, especially the rice - it was too salty (I thought), too liquid and still not yet perfectly done. Next time we won't add all liquid in one go, as instructed, but we'll add the broth ladle by ladle, as you're supposed to do with risotto.

The fish tasted wonderful, as did the Allioli (and my colleagues will hate me tomorrow!).