I made risotto for the first time earlier this year when my mum gave me the ‘Martin’s mad about fish’ cookbook by Martin Shanahan for Christmas. I wanted to learn some new things to do with fish and the first thing I made from the book was a crab risotto which I still make today. It is amaze.

Now, I’m no risotto expert but if a dish looks and tastes good to myself and Mos, it’s a winner. This usually means it goes in to my repertoire of every day dishes and I might even serve it to guests if they’re lucky.

The last time we had it, I made a deal with myself to try something new and voila, Leek and Bacon Risotto! I’m not gonna lie, I don’t think it’s quite as tasty as the Crab….but it’s good and I would make again. I used a mish mash of recipes I found on my friend google and here’s what went down.

Recipe (serves 4 if you like a small meal, 2 if you like a good healthy portion like me)

2 Leeks

3 or 4 rashers

About 1/2 a bag of risotto rice (They say 150g per person I believe)

2 handfuls or so of cheese (I used grated cheddar and Mozzerella – Parmesean prob better if you have it)

1 litre-ish of chicken stock

Splash of Cream

Salt & Pepper

As a side, I made Homemade garlic bread using a GF baguette from the Delicious Bakery (I bought in Tesco), butter and garlic. It looks a bit crap ’cause I was out of parsley and I was too hungry to wait for them brown. It was lovely though, I swear.

Now what do I do?

  1. Fry the rashers until crispy. Remove from pan and leave to cool
  2. Make the stock up
  3. Chop the leeks into small pieces and fry in the pan (with the lovely rasher grease) for a few minutes until softened
  4. Add the rice, coating with the the leeks and oil.
  5. Start adding the stock in to the pan and leave the rice to soak it up before adding the next batch of stock. Keep adding until the rice is cooked. You might not need all the stock, I used about 3/4 of mine.
  6. Chop up the rashers and add to the mix
  7. Add the cheese and the splash of cream
  8. Season with salt and pepper, as you like it
  9. Stir up, make sure the cheese is melted and everything is bubbling and gooey
  10. Serve – NOM