Chicken and green tomato risotto recipe
Posted by Fiona Nevile in Chicken, Rice and Pasta | 5 comments
Photo: Chicken and green tomato risotto
For years I thought that risottos were hard to make. I’d order them in restaurants and drool over the creamy rice with bite. I reckoned to cook the rice like that would take real skill. Oh how wrong I was. Risottos are easy. It would take ‘real skill’ to ruin the rice. Risottos are the ultimate comfort fast food.
We eat a lot of risotto throughout the year. They are a delicious way of padding out very little meat. Even Danny, the King of Carnivores adores them. Completely vegetarian risottos are delicious and I don’t think that it will be long before we are eating these too. Danny has discovered Ottolenghi
Anyway back to this recipe. The real stars in this dish are the green tomatoes. Tangy, with a lilting crunch – I’ve fallen in love with these underipe gems. I will be bottling and dehydrating loads to add pizzazz to winter dishes. Suddenly home preserving has an extra dimension – you can’t buy green tomatoes but you can grow them. If you have baskets of these gems, count yourself especially blessed.
Chicken and green tomato risotto (for 4)
Ingredients:
2 tbsp of olive oil
275g of Arborio rice
a couple of handfuls of chopped chicken pieces
1 medium red onion – chopped
1 chunky clove of garlic chopped fine (or a teaspoon of garlic granules)
200g of green tomatoes (chopped)
100g of red tomatoes (chopped)
200g of red and green bell peppers (deseeded and chopped)
half a tsp of dried savoury (herb)
Half a tsp of balsamic vinegar
2 tbsp of Mushroom Ketchup
500-750ml of vegetable stock (I used 2 tsp of Marigold vegetable stock powder)
To dress:
Freshly ground black pepper
3 tbsp of grated parmesan
Method:
Heat the olive in a large heavy bottomed sauté pan.
Gently fry the chopped red onion until it becomes translucent.
Add the Arborio rice and stir to coat the rice with the oil.
Add the chopped garlic and stir.
Add the chopped tomatoes, peppers, savoury, balsamic vinegar and Mushroom Ketchup.
Add the hot stock about 200ml at a time and stir until it is absorbed.
When the rice is soft but still has a bite stir remove from the heat and stir in the chopped chicken. Cover the pan for five minutes to allow the meat to heat through.
Add a good dash of freshly ground black pepper, sprinkle with grated parmesan cheese and serve on warm plates.
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I finally got around to trying this tonight – it’s a good way of using up spare unripe tomatoes. Whenever I make a risotto and don’t have any parmesan to stir in, I often add a tablespoon of cream cheese. That gives a nice and creamy risotto too, but doesn’t add as much flavour as parmesan.
I can’t do risotto- rice sends my husband’s blood sugar through the roof :^(
Here in the states we do fried green tomatoes, which are one of my favorites: flour quarter inch slices of green tomatoes, dunk in beaten egg, dunk in cornmeal, and then fry until golden in bacon fat. Salt, and serve- I like mine with just a little ranch salad dressing.
Mmmmm. Good thing I’m still full of spaghetti…
So pleased you are enjoying cooking and then eating your green tomatoes – a gem of an ingredient once you apply a little heat to it.
We are not even halfway through spring and already my chinese cabbage (wombok) plants are bolting and forming seed heads! I pottted up seeds of yellow bean, two types of the sugar snap pea, multi-coloured beetroot, basil and lettuce a coupe of days ago. All are lurking on my living room window sill.
Isn’t growing your own food such a wonderful feeling. Sending care, love and huggles,
Michelle xxx (Zebbycat doesn’t “do” veggies in his diet, Hooray!!!)
I went foraging mushrooms for the first time yesterday and after stumbling around for two hours, finally hit the jackpot! A lovely cluster of shiny yellow Chanterelles poking out of the undergrowth, closely neighboured by some nutty Bleeding Brown Mushrooms (not as gruesome as they sound!). I whisked home my treasure and made the tastiest risotto I have ever eaten!
Needless to say, i’ll be looting the leaf litter again later this week xx
Like you I would only ever eat risotto in a rstaurant but I cooked my first one this summer in order to use up some of my courgettes – and repeated it several times….totally delicious and I’m hooked. Will give this recipe a try as I have plenty of green tomatoes too. Thanks for the idea.