THIS week’s recipe is a great dish for impressing your friends when they pop over at the weekend.
Some people love the routine of cooking meals from scratch, while others get little pleasure out of being in the kitchen and prefer to rustle something up with little hassle.
Crispy chicken with risotto is quick, simple and delicious – the perfect standby dish to satisfy guests without spending your weekend slaving over the cooker.
Chicken is a fantastic ingredient as it is easy to cook and nutritious and leftovers can always be used to make something else.
CRISPY CHICKEN WITH RISOTTO
(Serves 4)
For the chicken:
2 tbsp olive oil
4 x 200g chicken breasts, skin on
Sea salt
Black pepper
For the risotto:
500g cauliflower, trimmed and roughly chopped
100g unsalted butter
1 onion, finely diced
2 cloves garlic, crushed
90ml dry white wine
300g arborio rice
1.5 litres chicken stock, warm
For the garnish:
50g walnuts, crushed
Handful of sage leaves
Mascarpone to serve
Pre heat your oven to 180C. For the chicken, get a clean pan and splash the olive oil in. If you have a pan with a metal handle use this as you want to be able to transfer it to the oven.
Heat the pan on a medium heat. Place the chicken skin side down, season with salt and pepper and cook until brown on the skin. Turn over and cook for a further five minutes on the other side and then place in the oven until the chicken is cooked through, approximately five to seven minutes.
Remove from the oven and wrap the chicken with tin foil. Keep the pan to warm the garnish.
Place the cauliflower in a food blender and blitz with short pulses, then whizz until finely crumbed.
Place the butter in a separate deep pan and melt; add in the onion and garlic and cook until soft. Add in the wine and cook until warm. Now add all of the rice into the pan and start adding the stock slowly. As each ladle-full is soaked up, keep adding until all the chicken stock is used. Make sure all the liquid has been absorbed. Add in the cauliflower and warm through.
Place the sage and walnuts into the same pan that the chicken was cooked in on a medium heat and warm through – you'll use this to dress the dish.
Place the risotto in a bowl and place the chicken alongside it. Garnish with a dollop of mascarpone on the risotto and the sage and walnuts on top.
