Everyone's cooking risotto at the moment it seems, and since pasta now sits in the negative column of my diet plan I am increasingly turning to rice as a way of getting that satisfactory carby bloated feeling of gastronomic satiation. British asparagus is in its prime right now and broccoli is nice for a bit of crunch too. I unfortunately can't have parmesan or butter, but frankly they aren't wholly necessary if you're working with a tasty stock, and doing without is that little bit healthier! I used the leftover stock from my chicken and chickpea casserole and just added some more water.For two people you'll need:
4 handfuls of arborio or carnaroli rice
1 bunch of British asparagus, discard the tough end of the stalks
handful of broccoli florets
handful chopped cabbage
1 sliced leek
3 chopped sage leaves
1 onion, diced
2 cloves of garlic, chopped
1 litre of good strong chicken or vegetable stock
1 glass of white plonk
salt and pepper
olive oil
Heat a glug of olive oil in a heavy bottomed frying pan, add the diced onion and garlic and soften until transluscent. Add the rice and coat evenly with the oil, stirring for about 2-3 minutes. Add the chopped sage and stir in. Add a sprinkle of salt and pepper. Add the glass of wine and start stirring the rice grains, cook until the wine has evaporated.
Turn the heat down under the pan to a simmer. You can now start adding your stock, soup ladle by soup ladle, stirring slowly. After the third ladle of stock, throw in the asparagus tips, broccoli, cabbage and leeks. Only add another ladle once the previous one has more or less been absorbed by the rice. This is usually every 45 seconds or so, but you can tell just by looking.
After about 18 minutes, taste your rice for bite. Good risotto should have bite, not be completely cooked to a mush, but the amount of bite is a purely personal taste. Keep adding stock until the rice has the right level of bite for you and the consistency is creamy but not runny and the rice slides off the back of your wooden spoon in a gloop.
Taste and season further if necessary. If you want cheese, stir some in just before serving. Eat in the company of a delicious man and a good movie.
Label: arborio, arborio rice, Asparagus Risotto, broccoli, carnaroli rice, Italian, rice, riso, risotto, spring, vegetarian
It would seem the May weather is about as undecided as British voters and following the intriguing, confusing and generally messy general-election last Thursday and the ongoing bickering over who gets to to form a government today I thought it was as well to cook something warming and simple, unfussy, straightforward and pleasing in every sense. I know a casserole is hardly the stuff of spring lunchtimes, but frankly, it's colder than a witch's tit outside, the sky's as dense as Bisto and there's a good call for a meal based around chicken stock, the all-curing Jewish penicillin.
The key is all in the quality of the chicken, so go out and buy a good grain-fed, organic birdy, with nice corn-yellow flesh and a thick coating of fat. I prefer the thighs, wings and legs for making casserole as they all have considerably more flavour than the breast and the bones add substance to the broth too.
You'll need, for two:
four legs/thighs of free range, corn-fed, organic, super eco-friendly chicken
1 can of chick peas
3 carrots
fresh thyme
fresh parsley
two bay leaves
crushed black peppercorns
sea salt
one onion, finely diced
two-three cloves of garlic
olive oil
Equip yourself with a Le Creuset heavy-bottomed iron cast pan if you can, or any solid, serious looking deep casserole dish.
Cut incisions in the chicken and stuff them with fine slivers of garlic, then season generously with salt and pepper. Heat some oil in the pan, throw in the onions and let them soften. once this occurs, turn up the heat and place your chick in the pan to brown it, say about five minutes on each side. Toss in the thyme, parsley chopped up and the bay leaves and the remaining garlic cloves. Stir the lot to coat the chicken in all the oil and juices then pour over enough hot water to cover the chicken by about half an inch. Put on the lid and simmer for 40 minutes, checking once in a while to make sure the water hasn't boiled to nothing.
As you wait, peel and roughly chop the carrots and open the can of chickpeas. Once the chicken has been brewing for 40 minutes, add the chickpeas and a little of their water, and the carrots. Cover the pan again and simmer for another hour as low as possible. Taste the stock and season accordingly.
This is a meal that keeps on giving, you can keep simmering as long as you like, until the meat falls off the bone, but two hours is enough to make it tasty as hell if you can't wait any longer!
Serve with wild rice, or some new potatoes and lots of good bread to mop up the juice!
Day two of the new diet, I suddenly realise I can eat Tabbouleh, something I could gorge on until kingdom come and a perfect spring dish full of zest and fresh flavours! Based on bulgar wheat and parsley, the ideal proportions are 2 parts parsley to one part bulgar, but I need sustenance and am eating this as a main dish, so I've upped the quantity of bulgar wheat somewhat. You can play around and see which you prefer!
Label: bulgar wheat, chilli, lunch, marocco, meze, spring, starter, tabbouleh, vegan, vegetarian
I love garlic. Almost as much as cheese, in fact. Garlic makes the world taste better, it wards off vampires and it is good for your heart. What more do you want???
Label: budget, garlic, garlic hummus, hummus, pine nuts, snack food
