Slightly Mexican spicy rice with pork

Blimey, hasn't the weather been nice!  Faced with this unaccustomed British summer, my girlfriend's parents invited us to a barbecue.  As is traditional, the MiL bought food for about three times as many people as were actually there so we came away with a good haul of leftovers, including a couple of cooked pork chops.  These particular ones had a Chinese marinade, making this a slightly bizarre but very tasty bit of fusion food, but that doesn't really matter - plain ones would be just as good.  What matters is not throwing away perfectly good food.

All the best recipes start by chopping an onion and sweating it over a low heat in a mixture of butter and oil, so let's do that.  Chuck in a crushed or finely chopped clove of garlic too, if you want.

While it's doing, we can cut the pork chops into fine strips, discarding any fat or gristle.  It helps all round to have sharpened your knives before getting to this bit.  Get the pork in the pan along with the onion.

That onion will need 10 minutes or so to soften, it's probably getting there by now so let's give it some flavour.  A bit of coriander and a lot of paprika, I think, along with the necessary twist of salt.

It needs heat as well, supplied today by a Wenk's Yellow Hot chilli pepper from the lovely people at the Real Seed Company.  My chilli peppers haven't done so well this year, due to neglect caused by moving house and a rampant attack of aphids, but the seeds are as always top quality.

When the onion's soft, add the rice to the pan and stir everything around so that it's coated in all that flavour.  Then immediately add a tin of tomatoes and a tin of black beans, including the water that they're preserved in.

Bring to the boil then back the heat right off to a gentle simmer - a bubble bursting the surface every second or two - and wait until the rice is cooked.  It'll take around twenty minutes and by the end there won't be much liquid left but take care not to let it boil dry - you can always add a splash of water from the tap if you think it necessary - and give it a good through stir every five minutes or so to prevent the bottom burning and the top from being undercooked.  Leave the lid off though, or you'll end up with a soggy dinner - you want it to be dryish by the end.

I had some mushrooms knocking around so I added them five minutes before the end of cooking time, as well as a good sprinkle of dried coriander leaves.  If you have a coriander plant, use fresh leaves instead.

We had this really simple tonight, just in a bowl with a spoonful of guacamole, but having given it some thought I reckon this is a really versatile dish.  We used pork, but chicken would do instead - and chorizo would be amazing

You could use it as a burrito filling in a tortilla wrap maybe, with cheese melted on top?  The possibilities are endless.

I haven't done this for a while, for which I apologise... I don't think the money-saving skills have atrophied too much, but the photography certainly has.  Forgive.

Chicken and leek thingy in wine gravy

We're moving house!  Which means we've got to eat everything that's in the freezer - and there aren't enough mealtimes to do it in.

One of the very few things we don't like about this flat (we're relocating to reduce our respective commutes, otherwise we love it here) is the crappy freezer - it's too small, and it only has one shelf in it, no drawers, so stuff has a tendency to fall out and you can't get to the back of it.

Which is why I found myself looking at a chicken breast, which happened to be at the front, trying to decide what to do with it.

Chicken goes nicely with leek.  So I bought a leek.  It goes nicely with ham, so I bought some ham too (always buy ham from the deli counter, it's nicer sliced fresh off the ham than from a sweaty packet, and you can buy the exact amount you need).

It wasn't until this point that I started to think about what I'd actually make, and the idea of a ricey thing with gravy took hold.

So, here's the plan.  Brown or whole grain rice is needed here, and it takes forever to cook (25-30 minutes according to the packet I have here) so the first task is to get a pan of salted water on the boil.

While the water's boiling, start chopping your leek and an onion.  You can start them sweating over a low heat in butter and olive oil as soon as the rice (I counsel 50g per person or a little less) has gone into the boiling water.

The leek and onion will want a bit of flavour added - I used salt, pepper, quite a bit of tarragon and a hint of thyme. 

They're all quite happy for a little while, the rice needs time to cook and nothing bad will happen to the leek-and-onion while it's on such a low heat.  Give both the occasional stir, but otherwise you've got ten minutes to yourself.

Now.  Gravy.

Add two tablespoonfuls of cornflour to the leek-and-onion-and-butter-and-oil mixture and stir it all around until it's all been absorbed.  Now add liquid, in the form of a glass of white wine and about the same amount of chicken stock.

Add the liquids gradually, but by bit, stir, and wait to see what happens - if the gravy is too thick or too floury you can add more liquid, but you can't go the other way - you can't make it thicker by adding cornflour because you'll just end up with lumps instead.

While that's going on, fry your chicken - small pieces, three minutes each side, turning once, in a hot pan with a mixture of butter and olive oil.   That's your route to the tastiest small pieces of chicken (for a whole bird, or bigger portions, you want to go low and slow.  Don't ask me why it works this way - it just does.

What about the ham?  That goes into the gravy at the last minute, as it just wants to equalize temperatures rather than cooking, torn into little strips.  Discard any fat or gristle.

I do believe my chicken and leek and wine thingy is an original recipe.   My girlfriend said it was like a risotto, but the cooking techniques and texture of the final result are quite different.  The ingredients would work as a risotto, but using brown rice instead of arborio makes for a different experience all round.

I like my name better, too.  I intend to say thingy far more often from now on.

Very Fishy Risotto

Here's another recipe that came out of that glorious summer's day I spent in Brighton, in the heady hot days of early April.  This one might be hazy on the details - I took photos at the time but didn't write anything down.  Bear with me though, I'm sure we can salvage something useful.

It's definitely a one-pot meal too, a factor that's swum back into focus for the first time since student days after my week without gas, relying on the borrowed camping stove, and that text from my sister asking for help as she doesn't have an oven at the moment.

Here goes then, recipe writing from vague memories and photographs - it's a new extreme sport!

Judging by the photos this is a bit of a production - I reckon there are about six portions from the quantities shown here.  Just cut it down for fewer people - just a leek instead of a leek and an onion, skip the mushrooms, just use the crab and skip the anchovies and crayfish...

For a big feast though, start with an onion, a leek and some mushrooms.  These look like oyster mushrooms to me, which suggests they were on special offer in Waitrose at the time - they are a useful addition to a seafood dish though as they do have a seafoody taste about them.

Chop them up and set them cooking over a low heat - as low as your stove will go - in a pan with a knob of butter and a generous splash of olive oil.

While that's going on, prepare a litre of vegetable stock from a cube in a measuring jug.  You won't be using all of it, but it's better to have too much ready than too little.

After five minutes or so the veg will be nice and soft so in goes the rice.  Use risotto rice (often labelled arborio rice).  Packet instructions generally suggest 75g per person, but we find that far too much - 50g per person is plenty.  On this occasion I was cooking with the intention of making leftovers so I think I used about 200g with the intention of making dinner for two, then lunch for two the next day.

Don't let your attention wander from the pan at all at this point or the rice will burn and you'll have to start again.  Keep the rice moving around in the pan until it's all coated in oil/butter but not brown or burned at all.

Now add a splash of stock - not enough to cover everything, but maybe half-way up.

Now for the fish.  I brought the dressed crab back from Brighton: it was only a fiver, which is a fantastic price for a fresh, locally caught dressed crab, and it came with the white and dark meat.  I had a tin of anchovies in the cupboard and felt that they would make a good addition in lieu of salt (you can use the oil they're stored in as cooking oil in the first step, too) and the crayfish tails came from Lidl.  I know, I know - local, under-the-arches fish suppliers and discount supermarket in the same blog post?  But as it happens Lidl do quite a decent line in MSC certified fish products for not very much money at all.

My number one alternative to shellfish would be smoked fish for a dish like this - top quality undyed smoked haddock from the supermarket fish counter with the skin removed and separated into flakes, for example.

Chuck your choice of fish in and give it all a stir.

Now the challenge is to cook your rice properly - the rest will take care of itself.

Risotto rice cooks by absorbing the liquid it's being cooked in.  It takes about 20 minutes (refer to the packet instructions) so the challenge is to add exactly the right amount of stock so that the rice is perfectly cooked at the same moment that there's no more liquid left in the pan.  How much stock is that per gram of rice?  Nobody has any idea so what we do is add stock little by little from that measuring jug.  You won't be using the whole litre - probably about half, in fact - but by making it up you've got as much as you'll need.

It is a slightly labour-intensive way of cooking, adding stock little-by-little and stirring most of the time, so maybe put the TV on loud enough that you can hear it from the kitchen, or start up a talking book on your iPod.  Or do I get bored too easily?

Judging by the photos, I obviously felt this needed a bit more vegetable component, so I chucked some frozen peas in a few minutes before the end of cooking time.

Judging by the pictures, there are about six portions here - just adjust for your numbers.  It's worth making some extra though, as you can turn leftovers into delicious fish cakes the next day.  Just make little cakes in your hands, pressing the risotto firmly together, and dip them first in flour, then egg, then breadcrumbs.  Shallow-fry for just a few minutes either side and serve with salad.  It's one of those meals where the leftovers are even better than the original dish!

Risotto with mozzarella and asparagus... on butane!

I love asparagus and it is nice to be able to buy it all year round, but nothing beats fresh, British asparagus when it's in season.  That would be right now, and the supermarkets and greengrocers are bursting with the stuff.  They're growing it just up the road from us at Secretts so it would be rude not to.

The best asparagus recipes are really simple ones that allow it to be the star of the dish, so I went for Hugh's asparagus risotto from this week's Guardian Weekend magazine (second recipe down on the link, scroll down to it).

There is a bit of an issue with the gas supply to the flat at the moment, so I am cooking on a borrowed camping stove.  I've never used one before but I'm really impressed with it, and if the weather hadn't been so vile this week I'd have enjoyed cooking outside and pretending to be Rick Stein.

Anyway, I pretty much followed the instructions to the letter and it was delicious.  I'm not convinced that roasting the asparagus added anything to the flavour - I like them just as well steamed - but it was nice for a change.

I'm surprised at how good the camping stove is - easier to cook on than some built-in hobs I've used in certain rented flats.  I go to a couple of festivals in the summer and I've always just bought the food there, but I'm seriously thinking of buying one of these to take away with me.  I don't want to get silly about it and buy a camping fridge or anything like that, but I reckon you could live quite nicely for a weekend on items that don't need refrigerating - how about chickpea curry with rice, pasta and pesto, broccoli fritters?  Or if there's a corner shop where you're camping, cauliflower cheese or the odd bacon sarnie?

Courgette and rice filo pie

The combination of weekly veg box and copy of Veg Every Day is working well.  There were a couple of courgettes left in the fridge from last week, and rather than doing ratatouille again we went to the index and hit upon this lovely looking filo pie.

I must admit I didn't think this was going to work, as you put the uncooked rice into the pie filling and let it cook in the oven in the water that comes out of the courgettes.  I chose the rice with the shortest cooking time out of the various varieties that I have in the stock cupboard, followed the instructions to the letter (halving all the quantities and substituting dried herbs for fresh - you can only realistically use fresh herbs if you have a herb garden, there's no point buying them from the supermarket).

Cracking the pie open after the 45 minute cooking time from the book was a disappointment...  the rice was nowhere near cooked.

After one hour and fifteen minutes, the top was a bit crispier than I'd have liked, but the rice was finally cooked.  I still can't quite believe that it cooked at all, it does seem like magic!  I might part-cook the rice before putting it in the filling next time though.

This was really tasty, but I'd probably up the quantity of cheese next time.  Having said that, the portions were extraordinarily generous - we halved the quantities from the book and neither of us was able to finish it!

Thai Green Prawn Curry

I absolutely love Thai green curry, but I'm always highly suspicious of curry sauce in jars.  They're expensive, and they always smell a bit funny when you open the jar.  This is a really fresh-tasting, zingy alternative, and it's not much more difficult than opening a jar.

First make the curry paste.  Just put the following ingredients into the blender and whizz until done:

A generous teaspoonful each of cumin, coriander and ginger, the juice of two limes, a good handful of spinach leaves, two Thai chilli peppers and two cloves of garlic.

Have a little taste of the resulting mixture, it's really zingy!

The curry cooks really quickly, so get your prep done before you start cooking.  It needs some sort of greenery - I used chopped pak choi, but mangetout or Chinese greens would be fine instead.

When you're ready to go, the curry cooks in 10 minutes, which is the same time as the rice.  So get the water boiling, tip the rice (I used a little bit over 100g of Thai Jasmine rice) in and get started.

Heat the wok and cook the greens for about a minute.  Then add the green curry paste and cook for three minutes.  Throw in a couple of sticks of dried lemongrass (or fresh, if you can find any).  Pour in a small tin of coconut cream and cook for three more minutes.  Finally, add the prawns (I used a 225g bag of raw ones) and cook for another three minutes.  Prawns cook so quickly, it doesn't make much difference if you choose to use cooked or raw ones.  They're such an easy item to cook, too - once they're pink and no longer transparent, they're done!  Just take care not to overcook them.

By this time the prawns are cooked, the rice will be ready so you can remove the lemongrass and serve!

These quantities made three portions, one each for us and one in the freezer to be nuked at work at some point.

Feel free to mess about with the ingredients.  Kale or any other green leaf vegetable would be a nice substitute for the spinach, or you could use chicken instead of prawns.  Thai curries often have avocado in them, or if you've got something like button mushrooms hanging about in the fridge they'd be a nice addition too.

The Skinny

Make the curry paste: put a generous teaspoonful each of cumin, coriander and ginger, the juice of two limes, a good handful of spinach leaves, two Thai chilli peppers and two cloves of garlic in a blender and whizz it all up.

Chop two pak choi

Start the rice cooking

Cook the pak choi in a hot wok for about a minute

Add the curry paste and cook for three minutes

Add a small tin of coconut cream and cook for three more minutes

Add prawns and cook for three more minutes

By this time the rice will be cooked, so serve up

Garnish with fresh coriander leaves, if you happen to have any

WeightWatchers ProPoints

11 per serving, including the rice

Creamy Korma-esqe chicken curry

Sometimes lovely meals appear on a whim.  I was just going to have bog-standard chicken and pasta tonight, but then my chilli pepper plant caught my eye and I decided I wanted curry.  The chicken was already out of the freezer, but creamy luxurious curry from stuff that I've got in store?  No problem.

First of all, peel and chop an onion and a couple of garlic cloves, and slice up a couple of mushrooms and some chilli peppers.  You can add heat using dried chilli flakes or cayenne pepper if you prefer.

Get them all going in vegetable oil over a low heat for about six minutes - just to get some colour on.  Not too hot or they'll burn - on my cooker, I left it on minimum heat over one of the larger gas rings.

While that's going on, you can cut your chicken breasts up into bite-sized pieces.

This is probably a good time to get a pan of water on the boil for your rice.  Basmati rice goes well with curry, and it normally cooks in about 10-12 minutes depending on the brand.

While that's slowly cooking away, get your spice mix ready.  This is a vaguely korma-esque spice mix consisting of one heaped teaspoonful each of ground cumin,  ground coriander, garam masala and turmeric, with the seeds from inside four cardamom pods, bashed up a bit in a pestle and mortar (or whatever you have to hand - rolling pins are good.  Or the base of a pan).  Chuck in a good pinch of salt, too.

Add the spices to the pan and stir everything around so that the onion and mushroom get completely coated.  I just love this moment when the spices hit the pan - it smells fantastic.

Next, add two tablespoonfuls of tomato puree, stir it around, and add the chicken.  Turn the heat up a bit and stir until the chicken's taken on some colour.

Assuming your rice wants the 10-12 minute range to cook, now's the time to put it in the pan of boiling water.

With that done, add a really generous sprinkling of ground almonds to the chicken and (on a whim - they were next to the almonds in the cupboard) a good sprinkling of poppy seeds.

Mix everything up , then add about 500ml hot water from the kettle - enough to nearly cover the chicken.  Get the water to a simmer - bubbles regularly breaking the surface, but not a roiling boil - and let it all cook for a while.

When the rice is nearly cooked, add 100ml cream to the chicken.  This isn't strictly necessary (and certainly not WeightWatchers approved) but it's damn tasty and anyway I had cream leftover from the carbonara the other night - it only would have gone in the bin otherwise.

Serve on rice and enjoy. 

Taste verdict
Granted, there may have been an element of flattery involved but my girlfriend really enthused about this one!  I was pleased as well.  I've had worse from Indian takeaways.  The sauce fulfilled the brief of creamy and luxurious, and because most of the cooking's done on a low heat the chicken kept a nice moist texture.

Financial verdict
Two large chicken breasts - these came from the butcher and I can't remember how much they cost.  Generally speaking, the butcher carries good quality meat and charges slightly less than the supermarkets for equivalent quality.  Waitrose and Sainsbury's both charge around £15/kilo for free range breasts, so let's say about £6.  Of course, the butcher sells whole chickens at two for a tenner so if you don't mind the effort of preparing it yourself you can bring this down a fair old bit.
100ml cream - 55p
Some mushrooms - 20p
An onion - 20p
200g rice - 30p
Garlic, chilli, cumin, coriander, turmeric, salt, cardamom, tomato puree, ground almonds, poppy seeds - pennies, from store.

These quantities made two really generous main meals, plus three more slightly smaller ones which are now rapidly cooling in the freezer making £1.45 per portion.


The skinny
Peel and chop an onion and two cloves of garlic

Slice a couple of mushrooms and chilli peppers

Start the onion, mushroom and chilli cooking in a frying pan in veg oil over a low heat

Start a separate pan of water on the boil for the rice

Prepare the spice mix: put a heaped teaspoonful each of ground cumin, coriander, garam masala and turmeric in a ramekin and add the seeds from four cardamom pods, bashed up in a pestle and mortar, and a good pinch of salt

Start cooking 200g basmati rice in the boiling water

Add the spice mix to the frying pan and mix until the onion is all coated

Add two tablespoonfuls tomato puree to the frying pan and mix it around

Add the chicken, diced into bite-sized pieces, and cook until browned on all sides

Add a generous sprinkling of chopped almonds and a rather smaller one of poppy seeds

Add about 500ml hot water and simmer for a while

When the rice is nearly cooked, add 100ml cream to the chicken and stir

Carrying on simmering until the rice is done, then serve

Venison Stroganoff

Venison is a fantastic meat - low in fat, tasty, and it's all free range.  We're very lucky to have Brock's Farm Shop nearby in Alton where we can get it even if we miss the farmers' market.  It's not massively expensive, either - certainly cheaper than the equivalent beef steak.

It does tend to divide opinion though.  I remember serving venison burgers at a barbecue once - one person came up to me and congratulated me for choosing free range meat, then the next got upset because I was eating Bambi.  You just can't win.

Once you get going with this it's all ready quite quickly, so get the prep done first.  Today I used camargue rice which takes half an hour to cook, so I had loads of time.  Even if you choose basmati, you can get everything ready while the rice cooks so get the water boiling, then crack on with the rest.  Don't worry if you run out of time - you can always drain the rice then put it back in the pan with the lid on, or covered in foil, where it will continue to cook for a couple of minutes in its own steam without coming to any harm.

For reasons of aesthetics as much as anything else, I feel that all the ingredients of stroganoff need to be in long thin strips.  So, cut the onion, mushrooms (I used oyster mushrooms and large chestnut mushrooms today, but take your pick of robust mushrooms) and venison steak into strips (discarding any fat) and crush or chop a clove of garlic.

Sweat the onion and garlic until soft, then remove them from the pan and set aside on a plate for the time being.

Season the meat with salt, pepper and paprika, then fry along with the mushrooms in the pan. 

After a couple of minutes put the onion and garlic back in, then add the sage, a good glug of brandy and a knob of butter.  Flame the brandy if you're feeling brave!  After my accidental flaming of the mussels the other night, I decided to give it a go and stuck my gas lighter into the pan.

 Finally, stir in a couple of squirts of lemon juice and three tablespoonfuls of cream.  Simmer for just a couple of minutes, tasting and adjusting the seasoning as you go.

Serve over the rice, with some cornichons.

Taste verdict
Lovely rich creamy sauce with that strongly flavoured venison - what's not to like!  The earthy mushrooms were a nice match with the gamey meat, but the cornichons turned out to be an unnecessary step too far - not bad, just a cheffy flourish that didn't add anything to the dish.

Financial verdict
One large venison steak - £3.85
An onion - 20p
Mixed mushrooms - about £1
Tub of cream - 79p (although we used up the cream that I'd bought for the mussels the other day)
Paprika, sage, a couple of cornichons, a clove of garlic, rice, knob of butter, splash of brandy, lemon juice - pennies, from store

£2.92 per portion.  Compare it to a beef steak and it makes great financial sense!  Good for such a luxurious meal, too.

The skinny
Put rice on to boil.

Chop an onion into strips.

Crush and chop a clove of garlic.

Chop a selection of mushrooms (preferably robust, earthy ones) into strips.

Cut a large venison steak into strips and season with salt, pepper and paprika.

Fry the onion and garlic over a low heat until soft, then remove from the pan and set aside.

Fry the meat and mushrooms in the same pan, then put the onions and garlic back in once the meat has browned.  Let everything cook together for a minute, then add sage, a good glug of brandy and a knob of butter.  Flame the brandy if you're feeling brave.  Watch your eyebrows.

When the flame has died, add a couple of squeezes of lemon juice and three tablespoonfuls of cream, stir it all together and let it cook for another two minutes.  If you didn't flame, best to let it cook a little longer or the alcohol will give the dish a bit of an aftertaste.

When the rice is cooked, serve the stroganoff over the rice.


WeightWatchers ProPoints
12

Chicken cakes

Remember the bit of leftover risotto from the other day?  I knew I'd be home alone for lunch today, so I put it in a tupperware in the fridge where it would be quite happy for 48 hours.  I've never frozen leftover risotto, but I see no reason why you shouldn't - generally you can freeze everything except eggs.

A word on storing cooked rice though.  Rice harbours a bacteria which can give you a nasty bout of food poisoning and isn't killed by cooking, just rendered dormant.  Leftovers should go into the fridge or freezer immediately.  Cold rice salads should never be allowed to get to room temperature but served straight from the fridge, and if re-heating you need to make sure it's served piping hot.  Never eat rice salads from a buffet if you don't know how long it's been out of the fridge!  I've been freezing leftover portions of dishes with rice and reheating them in the microwave at work for years and never had a problem.

I have a feeling you'd lose the luxurious texture of risotto if you just reheated it (but you're more than welcome to try) so I knocked up something a little bit more interesting.  First, make some breadcrumbs.  A household of two people generally doesn't get through a sliced loaf before it's past its best, so there's generally some bread saved in the freezer for this purpose (and toast).  Feel free to buy supermarket breadcrumbs if you prefer.  You will also need some flour and one egg, beaten a bit with a fork but whisking is not necessary (egg pictured here before I went at it with a fork for artistic purposes).

Then make the risotto into small balls with your hands (it will stick together much better than yesterday's burgers!) and coat them thoroughly, in this order, with flour, egg and finally breadcrumbs, then fry the cakes in oil.

I find that the easiest way is to put the ingredients into bowls in a line in the correct order (like the picture above), heat the pan on a medium flame, and then make the cakes, coat, and put them straight into hot oil.

It's worth spending the time on preparation so that the actual cooking is a quick and easy production line!

Fry the cakes on a medium heat, turning until they're golden-brown all over.  It doesn't take long, so make the cakes quite small so that they're cooked through in the time it takes to crisp up the breadcrumb coating.

I wasn't very hungry and with rice inside the cakes I don't think this really needs any extra carbs so I just had a bit of salad with them.  They'd be nice in a bread roll if you wanted to bulk it up a bit.

Taste verdict
Just as good as the original risotto, with the added bonus of delicious crispy breadcrumbs!  It's amazing how often leftovers are better than the original dish.

Financial verdict
It's actually quite difficult to say!  The cost of the leftover portion is already included in the 60p per person estimate of the original dish.  I don't ascribe any value to a slice of bread from the freezer, because most people would probably have thrown it away already.  A good quality egg is about 30p, and a couple of bits of salad doesn't seem to amount to much.  I think I'll just settle on Very Cheap.

The Skinny
Put some flour into a bowl, a lightly beaten egg into another, and some breadcrumbs into a third.

Splash some oil into a frying pan and bring to a medium heat.

Make leftover risotto into small balls in your hand.

Completely coat the balls in flour, then egg, then breadcrumbs.

Fry the chicken cakes, turning so that they go golden-brown on all sides and get heated through.

WeightWatchers ProPoints
Not known and probably not good.  Frying in breadcrumbs apparently isn't diet-friendly (although there is a WeightWatchers recipe for fish and chips which has the fish coated in exactly this way but cooked in the oven rather than fried).

Chicken and Mushroom risotto

In stark contrast to last night's meal, this one takes hardly any time at all to prepare but needs constant attention - no sofa and TV breaks tonight!

Risotto is one of those things that's a little bit tricky when you first start to learn it, but once you've nailed it it's foolproof and you can just mess about with it and add whatever ingredients and flavours you fancy.

Cooking risotto needs care and attention but no particular skill.  The main thing is to make sure that it doesn't burn or catch on the bottom of the pan, which you do by keeping the heat low, stirring regularly, making sure there is enough (but not too much) liquid in the pan and refusing to be distracted by anything.  In short, you coat the rice in melted butter, add stock, and stir until it's done (there will be instructions on the packet, but normally around 25 minutes), adding small amounts of stock as necessary.  While this is going on, chuck in whatever other ingredients you like - I've generally done it either with tinned tuna or smoked mackerel, plus whatever other tasty items happened to be hanging around in the kitchen.

We ate out the other week and my girlfriend had a chicken risotto made with red pesto that she really enjoyed, so I thought I'd do a version of it as I knew we had some green pesto in the fridge.  It's the end of the month, so an excellent time to dig about in the back of the store cupboard and use up all those odds and ends.

Our local butcher does two chickens for £9 - not organic, but free range and locally produced.  When we get them, we normally roast one and get them to joint the other.  Last time we did this, it must have been the apprentice butcher who did it, because it came hacked into some very odd shapes.  The last portion left in the freezer was a weird piece of breast meat with some inconvenient bone attached so rather than trying to cut it up raw, I roasted it in the oven, let it cool and then pulled it apart with my fingers.

As a rule, chicken on the bone (that is thighs, legs, wings and drumsticks) is cheaper (and tastier) than skinless, boneless cuts so my advice would be to do it this way unless you've got a real preference for white breast meat.  I have a bit of a thing about chicken welfare, so I've lately taken to buying cheaper cuts but making it free range and organic, whereas I couldn't afford to regularly buy free range, organic breasts.

 Next, finely chop an onion and gently fry it in some butter and olive oil (I might have added the juices from the roasting tray that the chicken cooked in too).  Risotto is all about low and slow and it begins with the onions - we don't want any burned bits, just nicely softened onions.  Use a low heat, and keep moving them about.

If you've bought a skinless, boneless piece of chicken you can cut it up raw and add it to the pan at this point.

You need short-grain rice for risotto.  The rice I used today is labelled as being paella rice, but I honestly don't know what the difference is between that and what's labelled as risotto rice - as far as I can tell they cook in the same way and result in the same texture.  Spanish and Italian foodies, feel free to shoot me down in flames!

A word on quantities.  The packet of rice gives 50g uncooked rice for a starter, or 75g for a main course - quantities which tally exactly with the advice on the WeightWatchers website.  Last time I made risotto I followed the packet instructions and there was far too much, so today I used slightly under 100g for the two of us.  There was still too much, and I've put the extra in the fridge for another day.

This is the crucial point.  If the doorbell rings now, ignore it.  If you get distracted while the rice is in the gently melting butter it will burn and then you've got no choice but to chuck it away and start again.

Once the rice is all coated in butter, add some of the stock - just enough to cover everything - and give it a stir.  Bring it to the boil, then back the heat off.  You just want a really gentle simmer.

You've got from now until the rice is cooked to add all your other ingredients.  Just make sure to keep an eye on the rice, stir it regularly so it doesn't stick and add more stock if it's getting dry.  Don't put too much liquid in all at once, because the rice absorbs the water - in an ideal world you want the rice to be ready exactly as the last of the liquid has been absorbed or evaporated so that you serve it without needing to drain it.

Remember the pesto?  It must have been in the fridge for longer than I'd realised because when I opened the lid I found mould growing in it.  The label says it will keep in the fridge for "a few weeks" and I didn't think it had been in there for that long - obviously it had!  I really must learn to label things.

Not the end of the world: I chucked in some dried basil, and as I've got a healthy basil plant I pulled some leaves off that, chopped them up and chucked them in too.

There's generally some parmesan cheese (or grana padano) knocking about the place.  It's essential for risotto, for texture and flavour, and it lasts ages in the fridge - longer than pesto!  I chucked a couple of mushrooms in too.  Salt and pepper to taste.

Once the rice is done (it's not possible to give exact timings, just keep tasting it until you're happy) serve with a handful more parmesan sprinkled on top.  I meant to place a couple of basil leaves on top too, but I forgot.  Never do manage those cheffy touches...

Taste verdict
Risotto is all about the texture - creamy and luxurious - and this didn't disappoint.  The roast chicken was tasty and the mushrooms gave it a nice bit of variety.  You could taste the basil (one of my favourite herbs) but I really missed the pesto - I'd been looking forward to it.  Never mind eh.

Financial verdict
One random piece of chicken - 75p from the butcher.  Seriously!  Two chickens for £9, jointed into six pieces.  Alternatively, the supermarkets do packs of six free-range thighs for around £3.  Use around one thigh per person, depending on their size (the person and the thigh).  To my mind, this makes chicken breast from the supermarket look bloody expensive.
Onion - 30p
Mushrooms - 15p
Rice, stock cube, butter, olive oil, parmesan, basil - pennies, from store

60p per portion

The Skinny
Roast your inconveniently bony piece of chicken in the oven.  Leave to cool, then pull the meat apart with your fingers and discard skin and bone.

Melt butter and olive oil (along with chicken juices from the roasting tray) in a pan.  Gently fry a chopped onion until soft.

Add rice and move it around the pan until it's coated with melted butter.  Don't let it stick or burn!  Keep the heat low and keep stirring.

Add chicken.

Add a small amount of stock - to cover everything - and stir.  Bring to the boil, then back off to a really gentle simmer.

Add mushrooms and parmesan, pesto if you have it, basil if you don't.  Salt and pepper to taste.

Keep a watchful eye on it, stirring and adding stock little-by-little until the rice is cooked.

Serve with parmesan.

WeightWatchers ProPoints
5ish