Easy Roast Chicken and Pea Risotto
By: Sheri Wetherell
Published: February 2, 2013

Risotto needn't be a challenge to make and Chef Marco Pierre White shows us just how easy it is in the video below. His Roast Chicken and Pea Risotto recipe can be made in just 30 minutes! Simply stop by the store on your way home from work and pick up a roast chicken. This recipe is a great way to use up leftover chicken, too! Watch and get the recipe below:


One of my very favorite ways of eating chicken is just simply roast and served with a pea risotto.  And a pea risotto is very easy, very simple to make and it’s all done in about 18 minutes, shallots, rice, parmesan, a bit of parsley, fresh peas, Knorr vegetable granules, reduced salt, just dissolved in water, delicious, so as always a splash of olive oil.  And risotto’s a fantastic alternative to making a gravy or making a sauce.  Shallots, as always cooked to remove the water content, to remove the acidity to allow the natural sweetness.  So you cook without color add our rice, as you can see, mixing in with the shallots and the olive oil, a little white wine, a big splash, you know, maybe 50 mils/75 mils.  So now what we do is bring the wine to the boil, reduce it down, remove the acidity and then we can proceed with the stock.  As you can see we add the stock slowly, little by little working it into the rice so therefore what happens is the rice absorbs the stock and releases its starch.  And also by working it all the time what happens is the rice cooks perfectly individually rather than just pouring it on top of each other.
The beauty of risotto is once you have the confidence at the stove to make it, then your recipes are endless and you flavor it with whatever you wish, saffron, wild mushrooms, asparagus, today it’s peas and parsley, delicious.  So this has now been going for about 14 minutes/15 minutes, we add the last bit of stock and the rice I’m using is super fino which is only about 16 minutes to cook approx, maybe 18, depending on the brand that you buy.  But you can see it’s now becoming very creamy, add some peas.  If you can’t get fresh peas use frozen, they’re very good.  Again it’s your choice how many peas you put into the risotto.  What I tend to like is lots of peas and rice and just the chicken, no supplement vegetables.  I fill the risotto with my vegetable so therefore it’s just chicken and risotto, but I’ve got sufficient vegetables inside my risotto.  My chicken is just roast very simply, straightforward, no fat, 40 minutes in the oven, that’s it.  This is your parmesan.  Again, parmesan is to your palate.  I tend not to be too generous with my parmesan.  But some people like a little bit more so you can serve that separately and then your butter, squeeze on top.  So here’s my roast chicken.  When you carve a chicken what’s rather nice is that you carve the length of the chicken so you get one – large slices of chicken but also secondly, it’s got some real texture to it.  You can carve meat too thin, you lose texture, you lose heat, you lose juices.
So that’s my risotto, you can see the cheese has melted and the butter’s making it very creamy and then with the olive oil and the juices from our tray, a little bit of roasting fat, finish with the parsley.  There’s something rather delicious about the roasting fat with the juices which has been roasted with a bit of lemon juice and just dribbled over at the end.  There we have our pea risotto with the roast chicken.  Let’s not forget, making risotto is very simple, it’s very easy.  It’s just dissolve your fear, have the confidence, have a go.  So as you can see the way I make my risotto, everything has been concentrated, flavors, the stock.  I like my risottos to be quite strong in flavor but at the same time quite delicate (continue watching above or here).
Roast Chicken and Pea Risotto
Serves 4-6
1tbsp Knorr Reduced Salt Vegetable Granules
	4 cups boiling water
	3 tbsps olive oil
	2 shallots, chopped
	2 cups risotto rice
	5 tablespoons dry white wine
	6 handfuls frozen peas, thawed (200g)
	1/4 - 1/2 cup grated Parmesan cheese (optional)
	2 tablespoons butter, cubed (optional)
	1 freshly roasted chicken
	Parsley sprigs for garnish
Directions
	First make your vegetable stock by dissolving the Knorr Reduced Salt Vegetable Granules in 4 cups of boiling water, stirring until thoroughly dissolved.
	Pour the stock into a pan and bring to a gentle simmer.
	Heat the olive oil in a casserole dish or a large, heavy saucepan.
	Add in the chopped shallot and fry, stirring, for 3–4 minutes over a low heat until softened and fragrant but without coloring.
Mix in the risotto rice, stirring well to coat it in the olive oil.
	Pour in the white wine, bring to the boil and cook stirring for 2 minutes to reduce the wine and so remove the acidity.
Add in a ladleful of the simmering stock. Work the rice with a wooden spoon or heatproof spatula, stirring it, until the stock has been absorbed. Adding the stock gradually and stirring the rice as it cooks helps it cook evenly and also helps create a creamy-textured risotto as it releases the starch from the rice.
Repeat the process of adding more stock and cooking it, working the rice until all the stock has been used and the rice is tender; this should take around 16–18 minutes.
Squeeze the thawed peas to get rid of any excess moisture and add them to the risotto, mixing them in. Cook the risotto gently for a few minutes more, stirring.
Add in the grated Parmesan and the cubed butter, stir in well, and set aside so that the Parmesan and butter melt into the risotto, enriching it and giving it a creamy texture.
Meanwhile, carve the roast chicken into drumsticks, thighs and chunks of breast fillet.
Spoon the pea risotto into a large, warm serving dish. Top with the chicken portions and pour over the roasting juices from the chicken. Garnish with parsley and serve at once.