Child Friendly Lemon Chicken Risotto

scimietta99's Note:

An economical, uncomplicated and extremely tasty dish that your children will love. Great for using left overs and freezes beautifully. Original recipe was in a library book I had called 'The Dinner Lady'. Unsure of author.

• Total Time: 35 mins
• Prep Time: 10 mins
• Cook Time: 25 mins

Ingredients:

Servings: 6

• 2 lemons
• 2 garlic cloves
• 2 liters chicken stock
• 500 g long grain rice
• 50 g butter
• 100 g onions
• 100 g garden peas
• 500 g cooked diced chicken

Directions:

1. You will need 2 Litres of good chicken stock or, in the absence of the home made nectar prepare the liquid using chicken stock cubes. Not having the proper stuff will give a less tastier dish. So please, please have a bash at making your own. It is so easy and quick and tastes so much better. Check out the Pressure cooker chicken stock which works well or one of the others. If you haven't got your own carcass then ask one of your friends to give you theirs as most people just bin them. Your stock needs to be gently simmering before you start the rice.
2. Melt butter in a large pan and add the onion (finely minced) and also the garlic (ideally minced also). Don't allow to brown or colour. Make sure the garlic/onion is minced very fine to avoid the 'if this has got onion in it I am not eating it!' comments. Have tried making without but it is needed for flavour.
3. Add the rice. Note that for this recipe it called for long grain rice and not arborio. Please try the recipe as it is as it does work and quantities for liquid are correct.
4. Immediately the rice has been stirred well add almost all the stock. Most recipes will call for adding the stock bit by bit but (from experience) I can tell you that the quantity of liquid will be correct and life is definitely too short to stand over a hot stove! Specially now online poker has been invented. So add about 3/4 of the stock and bring to simmer. You can't do this with arborio rice but the long grain rice makes the constant stirring and dribbling of hot stock unneccesary. Cover and cook until all liquid is absorbed and your rice is 'nearly there'. If you are timing this it should be about 15/20 minutes after the stock was added.
5. Add approx 1lb of chicken left overs (cut into cubes), the zest and juice of two lemons, the peas and rest of the stock if you feel it is needed. Season well and give the cooking time an extra few minutes.
6. This dish doesn't really need parmesan but a small amount of fresh parsley could be added. It is beautifully light and tasty. Not an 'elegant' dish but my children absolutely love it and the flavour is good considering the few ingredients.
7. Freeze left-overs after adding a tiny bit more stock to leave it a bit 'soupy' to avoid it getting stodge when it cools.
8. Enjoy!
9. Preparation time excludes making home made stock.