Comfort chicken

 It seems like quite a few of us have reverted back to comforting, warming food and, given the circumstances, why not? As evidenced by the last lockdown, risotto is my food blanket of choice, so here is my very favourite recipe. I had to maintain sobriety last night in order to provide a taxi service for Child 2, so took advantage of the fact by cooking something she absolutely hates - creamy chicken risotto. This is from Real Food by Nigel Slater, which is totally reliable and highly recommended.

Firstly, you sweat off an onion in 'a thick slice' of butter. This is why I love Nigel Slater, plus the fact that his portion sizes are realistic - he claims this recipe serves 4, or 3 greedy people. He is not wrong. Once the onion is translucent, add a small handful of fresh thyme - I happened to have some hanging around in the fridge, but you can absolutely use dried. Then add 250g of risotto rice and slowly add a litre of chicken stock. I'll be honest, sometimes I do the stirring and adding stock thing, and other times I add the whole litre and bang it in the oven for 15 minutes at 180. No judgement here.

Whichever method you use, when the rice is nearly done - al dente - add a final ladle of stock and about 350g of cooked chicken. Nigel suggests that this chicken might be leftover from a roast dinner or some such, but leftovers like that are rare in our house, so you can either buy and strip a ready roasted chicken, or cook some breasts etc for the purpose. 

Once the rice is cooked, add 100ml of creme fraiche and a big handful of parsley. Mix it all up together and serve in massive dollops with lots of black pepper and parmesan. Relax slightly.