The Cottage Smallholder

Chicken and ham risotto without the parsley garnish

We eat a lot of risotto in the cottage. It’s a great way of padding out small leftovers of meat and totally vegetarian risottos are great too – all that creamy rice with just a little bite is gorgeous. Generally I am the one who makes it. Danny tried it once using some duck fat that he found lurking in the bottom of the fridge. I’m not sure how old that fat was but it tasted like something from Tutankhamen’s tomb.

I strongly suspect that he did this accidentally on purpose. He’s never been asked to attempt the dish again.

In fact risotto is not difficult to make. It just takes a bit of time. The end result is definitely worth the effort. Real comfort food that is relatively low fat and absolutely delicious.

Chicken and ham risotto (for 4)

Ingredients:
2 tbsp of olive oil
275g of Arborio rice
1 large handful of roughly chopped chicken meat
1 large handful of roughly chopped smoked ham – the end of a ham joint is perfect (we often find this half price on the Tesco *CFC – it freezes well)
1 medium red onion – chopped
1 chunky clove of garlic chopped fine (or a teaspoon of garlic granules)
8-10 baby plum tomatoes (sliced lengthways in half)
1 large red pepper deseeded (chopped into1.5 centimetre chunks )
half a tsp of dried herbs of Provence
500-750ml of vegetable/chicken stock (I used 1 tsp of Marigold vegetable stock powder and one chicken stock cube – of course real homemade chicken stock would be the cat’s whiskers)
1 tablespoon of grated parmesan
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, herbs.
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, I tbsp of grated parmesan and the ham. Cover the pan for five minutes to allow the meat to heat through.
Add a good dash of freshly ground black pepper and salt to taste, sprinkle with grated parmesan cheese and serve on warm plates.

If you want to go really wild, dress each plate with a decent sprinkle of finely chopped parsley.

*CFC = condemned food counter