Chicken, spinach and rocket risotto
The main things to understand when you are thinking of making a risotto are:-
Given my current status of non-chewing, a risotto was appealing this evening.
I knew I had arborio rice which is THE best rice to use. Reasons? It's from Italy's great rice growing region: the flat-as-a-pancake Po valley; and it's very starchy so absorbs all the flavours that you are cooking it with to make a gloriously tasty, starchy bowl of comfort food while retaining crunch in the centre of the grain.
I also had onions and shallots, butter, eggs, good olive oil, garlic, baby spinach salad, rocket salad, white wine, stock, good quality chicken soup and parmesan. Put those ingredients together and you're laughing.
So, first I selected a shallot over an onion (no reason, just because). I peeled and chopped it and cried copiously.
Then I peeled and crushed three fat cloves of garlic. The onions and garlic went into a solid non-stick pan with approximately a tablespoon of the olive oil and an equivalent amount of unsalted butter. These were stirred around until the onion was soft and clear and then I added about 200g of arborio rice, half a tin of good chicken soup (Tesco have a great one at the moment - 'British Roast Chicken Soup' in their Finest range - which actually has definable and good-looking bits of chicken in it) and the equivalent, at a guess, of a small glass of white wine (which happened to be a French Picpoul de Pinet from the Languedoc and available at Majestic Wines). Stir this lot around and as the rice starts to absorb the liquid add, in two separate goes, 300g of stock. If the stock you use is homemade then you will probably want to add a teaspoon of bouillon powder, as I did, just to boost up the salt and stock flavours. If, on the other hand, you have made it with a stock cube or wholly with stock powder, then you probably will not need to add any extra salt. Just use your tastebuds.
Keep an eye on it and stir from time to time to ensure that the rice is absorbing the liquid and not sticking to the bottom of the pan.
Next you need to grate about a cupful of fresh parmesan and put that in the risotto, followed by a couple of generous handfuls of baby spinach leaves and the same of rocket. Stir it all around and leave for another few minutes for them to soften.
The final ingredient to go in is an egg yolk. You could leave the egg yolk out as that's a very purist option, but what it does is bind the risotto together and adds a crucial subtle level of richness and silkiness. If you can't be bothered with the egg yolk, then an extra large knob of butter would do (but is a cop out!). The parmesan, meanwhile, adds a further layer of flavour and saltiness that is required to stop the rice being bland (hence I've added no extra salt in itself).
Then that's it.
The whole thing should have taken about 20 minutes to cook from scratch (hence NEVER order a risotto unless they tell you there will be an extra wait time - otherwise it means it's been sitting in a pan for God knows how long and will inevitably and disgustingly SOGGY!). Tip: check the rice from time to time by tasting it during the 20 minutes cooking time. Your aim is to achieve a rice that is al dente i.e slightly firm in the middle as you chew it, without being crunchy of course! A little resistance to the bite is what you are aiming for...
Serve it up with some fresh rocket on top and a generous slug of beautiful green, peppery extra virgin olive oil.
These quantities easily serve 3 people.
1. Simplicity of ingredients
2. Quality of ingredients
3. Timing
There is nothing more disgusting than a soggy risotto (well, truth to tell, I can think of many things worse but let's stick to the scale of relativity that we're on here!).
Given my current status of non-chewing, a risotto was appealing this evening.
I knew I had arborio rice which is THE best rice to use. Reasons? It's from Italy's great rice growing region: the flat-as-a-pancake Po valley; and it's very starchy so absorbs all the flavours that you are cooking it with to make a gloriously tasty, starchy bowl of comfort food while retaining crunch in the centre of the grain.
I also had onions and shallots, butter, eggs, good olive oil, garlic, baby spinach salad, rocket salad, white wine, stock, good quality chicken soup and parmesan. Put those ingredients together and you're laughing.
So, first I selected a shallot over an onion (no reason, just because). I peeled and chopped it and cried copiously.
Then I peeled and crushed three fat cloves of garlic. The onions and garlic went into a solid non-stick pan with approximately a tablespoon of the olive oil and an equivalent amount of unsalted butter. These were stirred around until the onion was soft and clear and then I added about 200g of arborio rice, half a tin of good chicken soup (Tesco have a great one at the moment - 'British Roast Chicken Soup' in their Finest range - which actually has definable and good-looking bits of chicken in it) and the equivalent, at a guess, of a small glass of white wine (which happened to be a French Picpoul de Pinet from the Languedoc and available at Majestic Wines). Stir this lot around and as the rice starts to absorb the liquid add, in two separate goes, 300g of stock. If the stock you use is homemade then you will probably want to add a teaspoon of bouillon powder, as I did, just to boost up the salt and stock flavours. If, on the other hand, you have made it with a stock cube or wholly with stock powder, then you probably will not need to add any extra salt. Just use your tastebuds.
Keep an eye on it and stir from time to time to ensure that the rice is absorbing the liquid and not sticking to the bottom of the pan.
Next you need to grate about a cupful of fresh parmesan and put that in the risotto, followed by a couple of generous handfuls of baby spinach leaves and the same of rocket. Stir it all around and leave for another few minutes for them to soften.
The final ingredient to go in is an egg yolk. You could leave the egg yolk out as that's a very purist option, but what it does is bind the risotto together and adds a crucial subtle level of richness and silkiness. If you can't be bothered with the egg yolk, then an extra large knob of butter would do (but is a cop out!). The parmesan, meanwhile, adds a further layer of flavour and saltiness that is required to stop the rice being bland (hence I've added no extra salt in itself).
Then that's it.
The whole thing should have taken about 20 minutes to cook from scratch (hence NEVER order a risotto unless they tell you there will be an extra wait time - otherwise it means it's been sitting in a pan for God knows how long and will inevitably and disgustingly SOGGY!). Tip: check the rice from time to time by tasting it during the 20 minutes cooking time. Your aim is to achieve a rice that is al dente i.e slightly firm in the middle as you chew it, without being crunchy of course! A little resistance to the bite is what you are aiming for...
Serve it up with some fresh rocket on top and a generous slug of beautiful green, peppery extra virgin olive oil.
These quantities easily serve 3 people.
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