This risotto recipe is quick, easy, sim­ple and as authen­ti­cally Ital­ian as a Chicken Tikka Masala and five pints of Stella. It’s a favourite of my two-year-old son, as the prepa­ra­tion involves sharp knives, hot water, raw chicken and many other things with which tod­dlers can hor­ri­bly dam­age them­selves.

Super Easy Risotto

ingre­di­ents

To serve 4:

• 2 chicken breasts
• 3 leeks
• about 20 but­ton mushrooms
• 1 large white onion
• 500g Arbo­rio risotto rice
• 1 chicken stock cube
• cheese (optional)

Method

1. Finely chop the onion, slice the leeks and fry them both in a large casse­role pot (with some olive oil) until they start to soften.
2. Slice the chicken breasts, and add them to the pot.  Con­tinue fry­ing until they are mostly cooked.
3. Halve the mush­rooms, and add them to the pot.  Lower the heat to what would be a simmer.
4. While the chicken and veg­eta­bles fry, make a pint of stock using the cube.
5. Add the rice to the pot.  Keep stir­ring to pre­vent it from stick­ing to the bot­tom, adding more oil if necessary.
6. After a minute or so, pour the stock into the pot.
7. Keep the mix­ture at a low sim­mer for 15 min­utes, adding hot water when nec­es­sary to ensure that the ingre­di­ents stay cov­ered as the rice absorbs water.
8. Stop keep­ing the pot topped up with water, and con­tinue sim­mer­ing and stir­ring until all the water is absorbed or evap­o­rated.  This should take another 5 minutes.
9. Grate and stir in the cheese.
10. Serve!