Risotto and dreams of travel

I actually started writing this a few days ago, but got distracted and didn't finish. The rest of the week after it was mostly fine, right up until Thursday when it all went a bit wrong and I lost all my concentration. Instead I mostly fretted and looked at the headlines. I should not have done that. I've spent the last couple of days sitting in the sun in the garden reading and feeling the better for it - there is currently a chicken in the oven (one of my favourite things) and shortly I will go and make a cocktail. Easter is a time of hope, it's Spring, maybe it's all going to get better. Anyway, I thought I'd revive this post as it's still more risotto and some of it was pleasing reminiscence about sunshine - autumn, rather than spring, but sunshine nonetheless.

Several years ago, we went to Seville for a long weekend and it was wonderful. We ate what lives in my memory as some of the best meals I have ever had, and this dish is reminiscent of one of them. Obviously we had several different tapas dishes, but the really memorable one was duck with apple risotto (from that restaurant, I cherish the memory of the steak in another). It's a dish that I've attempted to recreate a few times, not always with apple risotto - sometimes I do a tomato one, or fennel and leek. But today, thinking of holidays past and hopes for future travel, and knowing that there was duck in the freezer (my husband buys it in the hope that I will cook this), I opted for apple risotto, following a recipe I found on the internet, but with some tweaks.

Chop an onion and a yellow pepper, and peel and chop an eating apple (one if cooking for two and the apple is medium size, scale up as required). Soften the onion and pepper, I added some fresh thyme at this point because I thought it would work, the original recipe had no herbs in it at all for some reason. There's a lack of garlic, I opted not to add any because I thought it might overwhelm the flavour. Puzzling, I know. Chuck in the rice as normal, then stir through the apple. I usually deglaze with a splash of vermouth so I did that here. The recipe suggested just adding chicken stock in the usual way. In between stirring it every so often (I do not stir constantly - feel free to tell me if I'm right/wrong) prep the duck. We had duck breasts, so I slashed the skins, scattered them with salt and fried them skin side down until the skin was crispy before putting them in the oven. Ignore the instructions on the duck packet that they should have 15 minutes at least, this is a lie for people who like over-cooked meat. Ours got 10 and it was only that long because I wasn't entirely convinced they were fully defrosted when I started cooking.

Leave the risotto to rest for a few minutes whilst the duck cooks then rests, then eat, thinking about Seville and where to go when travel is possible again.