I’ve been cooking at home quite a bit the last few months and because of the time at home, been making my own chicken stock every week. I’ve found that a 3-4 lb chicken will make 12-14 cups of quality chicken stock (roast the chicken and use the bones and you’ve got meals for days). Chicken stock is the base for most of the soups and rice dishes I make, and having pneumonia now, and having gone through 2 weeks of the flu, this makes for quality recuperation food.
Today I created my first risotto recipe, starting from the idea of this Epicurious.com recipe and adapting it to my own flavor profile and ingredients on hand. Instead of wine, I used a quality dry Spanish sherry and I can’t imagine anyone using anything but Arborio rice for a risotto. The Pernod was not used because of the use of sherry.
I’m not going to pretend this is a foodie blog and take pictures of the entire process of cooking my food but I passed my first test without exception. Saute the onions, bring in the sherry, build the flavor with every dose of warmed stock and a few stirs… The end result was a little heavy on spinach but tastie and creamy none the less….