Sluttishly Savoury: Salad Risotto

I was all prepared for fantastic sunny weather, I found lots of salad bags and fresh herbs in the reduced section of the supermarket (woohoo!) so stocked up anticipating glorious weather. Well, that wasn't to be and as the rain lashed down I looked at my bags of rapidly wilting salad leaves and thought it was exactly the opposite of what I wanted...comfort food.

Risotto is one of my go-to dishes when comfort is needed. It's also a wonderful hangover cure, theres something very therapeutic about staring blankly at a dish of rice whilst stirring away amidst the smell of hot chicken stock. For this one I added carrot and celery as I had some to use up, you could throw in some mushrooms too.

The beauty of risotto is you can just throw any leftovers in and it instantly transforms them into a hearty meal, plus you have that wine open to cook with so you might as well have a glass as you dream of sunny times in hot places.

You'll need:

• Risotto rice, I like to use carnaroli
• unsalted butter
• finely diced onion
• finely diced carrot
• diced celery
• sliced garlic
• wine glass of sherry, I like the sweet nuttiness of Amontillado sherry but white wine/vermouth is more traditional.
• chicken stock
• leftover cooked chicken pieces (or ham)
• bag of salad leaves (mine had lambs lettuce, lollo rosso and other unidentified lettuces)
• fresh herbs such as fennel/dill/parsley/tarragon/basil/lemon thyme/chives
• salt and pepper
• parmesan shavings

Make it:

1. Get you stock nice and hot, but not boiling in a big saucepan and keep it simmering away there as you make your risotto.
2. Melt your butter then add your onion, carrot, celery and garlic and cook gently until softened. Add your rice and stir to coat in the butter, heat gently for a couple of minutes then pour in your sherry. Give it a good stir then add a ladle of your hot stock. Stir until it's absorbed then add more.
3. Repeat until your rice is almost ready, season it then add your cooked chicken or ham and bag of salad leaves and fresh herbs along with another good blob of butter. Give it a stir then pop a lid on, remove it from the heat and just let it sit there for a couple of minutes.
4. Plate up then serve topped with parmesan and a drizzle of extra virgin olive oil and snuggle up on the sofa under a blanket until summer arrives.