Chicken and Pea Risotto

Tonight I am making a Chicken and Pea Risotto for the family. I have some chicken stock that I made fromt he leftovers of a chicken cooked in the crockpot, and I froze it. I wanted to use free frange chicken in this meal and went to get a couple of chicken breasts from the supermarket last night. I was soooo surprised, it was $18 dollars for the chicken breasts and only $11 for a whole free range chicken!

So I got the whole chicken. I cut out the chicken breasts and have pan fried these for the Risotto tonight, and put the rest of the chicken into the crockpot for dinner tomorrow night (I'll work out what we are having later - but I will get more stock for the freezer anyway). I have pan fried the breasts for a bit of colour and finished in the oven.

The risotto itself is really simple to cook, it is the stock that has always put me off in the past as they are always so salty. My stock is made simply with the liquor left over from the chicken in the crockpot (I cheat and add 2 cups of water to the crockpot when I am cooking the chicken in it), I bone out the chicken once it is cooked and put all the bones, carcass and skin back in the crockpot with a diced carrot and diced cellery, some salt and pepper and about 500ml of water. I then leave it another night to simmer. All you have to do then is sieve the stock into a container and put it in the fridge, the next morning the fat will have solidified on the top and can be skimmed off. Leaving a great stock for using or freezing. I freeze it in zip lock bags.

Risotto

1 Cup Aborio Rice
2 Onions diced
1 tsp crushed garlic
500ml Chicken Stock
2 cooked chicken breasts
2 cups of frozen green peas
salt and pepper to taste
1/4 cup of finely grated parmesan cheese
2 Tblsn of olive oil (or rice bran oil)
1 large teaspoon of butter

Melt butter with olive oil in a large frying pan ( I cheat a bit here and use the pan that I cooked the chicken breast in to get the extra flavour of the chicken) . Add onions and garlic and stir for 2 minutes. Warm the chicken stock in a pot - it absorms better if it is warm. Add the Aborio rice, stir for another 2 minutes then add a ladle of stock stir in the stock until it is almost absorbed and then add another ladle. Do this until the stock is used up and the rice is tender. Add the chopped up chicken breasts and the warmed up frozen peas. Stir thru and finally add the parmesan cheese, this seems to finish the risotto of nicely.

You don't want to cook the crap out of the peas as they just need to be heated thru as they will pop when eaten and give the risotto a bit of a crunch.

You can take out the chicken and just have roast pumkin for a vegetarian option for example.

This risotto has so much flavour, is easy to make and makes use of leftovers from cooking a chicken. We sometimes cook a chicken in the crockpot for a roast and use half of it for dinner and the other half for the risotto the next night, with the stock being made overnight. This makes a chicken go a long way. I have made this with a pork roast also, bu the pork liquor is very strong so needs to be watered down 50/50.

The final tip for a good risotto is: Stir Stir Stir, you can't leave it on the stove, it will dry out and burn easily.