BAKED CHICKEN & PORCINI RISOTTO

Happy New Year! I do love a new year's resolution and so this year I am trying to eat more fruit and veg and do the 5:2 diet. So far so good….but then again it's only been a week!

Tonight was definitely a 5 day so Pascal and I decided to cook a risotto and this has to be the easiest risotto recipe possible.

Ingredients for 4 people:

30g dried porcini mushrooms
180ml boiling water
500g chicken thighs, trimmed and chopped
400g arborio / risotto rice
1 litre chicken stock
2 tsp thyme leaves
1 clove of garlic, peeled and crushed
50g butter, chopped
80g Parmesan, finely grated and some to serve 
Salt & pepper

Now I did put all the ingredients together for a photo but I forgot to take it - doh. I am obviously out of practise!

Anyway start by preheating the oven to 200C fan / 220C / gas mark 7.

Place the mushrooms in a bowl and cover with the boiling water. Leave to stand for 5 minutes.

Crush the garlic and cut the chicken and then put in an ovenproof dish (3 litre capacity).

Add the thyme as well.

Drain the mushrooms, reserving the soaking liquid. Next chop the mushrooms and add them to the chicken etc along with the reserved liquid.

Finally add the stock and rice, stir together and season.

Cover with foil and bake for 40 minutes. Halfway through cooking, give it a stir.

After 40 minutes, remove the dish from the oven and stir in the butter and Parmesan for around 3 minutes or so until the risotto thickens. Season again if required.

Divide into bowls and top with Parmesan to serve. We also added a drizzle of truffle oil.

This was really good - I have never baked a risotto before but I definitely will again - so much easier than all the constant stirring and you wouldn't know the difference. I had ripped this recipe out of a magazine 2.5 years ago so I am very pleased I finally got round to cooking it and I would certainly recommend it! Yum!