Milly Mossop

Chicken, leek and red pepper risotto in 22 simple steps

I just want to post this recipe (can't really call it a recipe, I made it up as I went along - when does a recipe become a recipe? Discuss. See, every now and then a whiff of that English degree sails tantalisingly past my nose... I can almost smell it...But back to food) - oh yes, so I just want to post this before I forget because, if you'll excuse my French arrogance, it was fucking tasty.

1. Pot roast a chicken with lots of thyme (I also stuck a halved lemon up its bottom, poured on some stock made with a Knorr chicken stock cube - didn't have any white wine or would have used that - smeared butter on its breast and scattered it with onion, leek and root veg. The lucky bird.
2. Eat almost as much of the chicken as you'd like but not actually as much as you'd really like because you need to keep about half the breast meat and all the stuff on the back (poke around between the bones, get it all out) - put this under lock and key / in the fridge, depending on your level of resistance to temptation until the next day
3. Meanwhile make the stock, cover the chicken carcass in its cooking pot with water, add some more thyme, pepper corns, leek ends, droopy carrots / whatever's lying around etc (I'm sure you  know how to make stock) - bring to boil, simmer for a couple of hours, strain into big jug / bowl, leave to cool overnight and put into fridge in morning (do not ask boyfriend to put into fridge in morning. He will forget.)
4. Next day, just as you're about to leave the office instigate the mother of all email debates amongst foodie colleagues about the merit of parmesan cheese and white wine in a risotto. My dilemma - making a cheap and tasy supper of Sunday leftover's without the two ingredients that make it taste really yummy but will together cost £10 from the nearest food shop, which happens to be M&S. Leave colleagues to disagree (Ed says cheese unimportant, Nik says I'll die without it but could substitute white wine vinegar for white wine, Dom says funnily enough his girlfriend is making him pancetta and mushroom risotto tonight. I think to myself 'I bet Dom's girlfriend isn't kicking off a fuss in her office about how to make a risotto' and then think 'probably because she knows exactly what she's doing and has all the right ingredients'. Give up, start to walk home.
5. Half way home on South Lambeth Road, remember Tony's Italian Deli... Pop in, big cheery (if sweaty from walking in synthetic clothing) smile "hello! Do you have any parmesan cheese?" Tony looks at me like I am mental and walks to great big, glass fronted fridge full of cheese. "How much you want?" "Ohhh just a bit, 100g?" (thinking 'fuck! how much is 100g? I've only got £40 on me!') Tony slices off a modest amount and says "Is £1.60 ok?" I feel so relieved I decide to really go for it and ask Tony if I can substitute white wine vinegar for white wine in a risotto. Again he looks at me rather warily and after a little bit of that shop keeper / customer banter that I'm really crap at (if the world were a stage then I would not be asked to play a regular, normal customer) we agree that I should go for a half bottle of Frascati at £3.40. Having implied that I don't want a full bottle because I'd then have to drink it all, I now realise Tony thinks I am a struggling alcoholic. With an interpersonal skills deficit. I weigh up pros and cons of sailing out with a cheery "ciao!" (as I have seen other customers do), gurn my thanks, turn around, walk into another customer and exit stage Stockwell.
6. Home sweet (paint smelling) home - discover exciting veg box on doorstep (yes I know there's a credit crunch but it tastes ten times better than supermarket plastic and forces you to eat veg. Not that I've ever had to be forced to eat anything in my life). Inside awaits, amongst other delights, a lush leek and a juicy red pepper. Take this upstairs to kitchen (which is meant to be downstairs by now but that's another story)
7. Chop yesterday's leftover chicken into little bits and put aside
8. Slice onion, 2-3 garlic clooves and a leek, put to one side
9. Oh almost forgot, get stock from fridge, scrape fatty crust from top, tip remainder into a pan and heat on the hob
10. Heat olive oil and butter in a deep saucepan / casserole dish and chop juicy red pepper
11. Cook onions, garlic, leek and then pepper in the oil & butter for a few minutes - oh and add some thyme leaves as well
12. On a whim add about half a teaspoon, or a little more - whatever you fancy really - each of ground turmeric and paprika, and then a pinch of dried chilli flakes or something similar
13. Keep stirring til it's lovely and soft and orangeish
14. Add arborio / risotto rice (about 300g I think), stir til rice is coated in oil and transluscent
15. Then add a glass of white wine, stir until absorbed
16. Forgot to mention, you should have Radio 4 on, particularly if they're broadcasting Just a Minute. That Sue Perkins is so funny. Hollyoaks, I have learnt, is no good for making risotto because something attention grabbing, like an abandoned son killing his long lost brother's boyfriend who used to be a priest, will happen and before you know it you've been sat on the sofa for ten minutes neglecting your risotto - far from the constant stirring insisted upon by  Valentino Harris. No, risotto making requires the radio. Not the television. If you time it right you might even catch The Archers.
17. Now add the stock, ladle by ladle, stirring (see above) continuously until you're happy with the texture - this always takes me at least half an hour, although most recipes say about 20 minutes
18. Finally (almost) stir in a knob of butter and a handful of (cheap from the local deli) parmesan cheese, put the lid on the pot and leave for 2 minutes whilst you bark at boyfriend and switch from Radio 4 to Corrie (remember, radio for risotto making, telly for risotto eating)
19. Finally, finally, spoon onto warm plates and then (this is the bit that I think could earn my first Michelin star) drizzle with Belazu Argan oil ('a unique oil with a mildly toasted, nutty flavour'), sprinkle on a bit more grated parmesan, a grind of black pepper and tuck in.
20. Go back for seconds
21. Go back for thirds
22. Feel fat but happy

Hamlet, Butterflies, Boats and Cream Tea

It can only be Stratford-upon-Avon.

Last Friday I took Chief Boozemaid Becca on a long awaited mini break (very mini, just one night) the highlight of which was seeing David Tennant in the RSC production of Hamlet. My friend Melanie had booked tickets yonks ago, as soon as they went on sale and very kindly got me two as well.

And goodness me, what a performance. The English graduate within me would have many eloquent, intelligent words to say about David Tennant's portrayal of Hamlet but unfortunately I can't seem to find her at the moment. I think she might be squashed under the 3 big portions of chicken risotto I've just eaten (this new credit crunch culture of 'waste not want not' has turned me into something of a food enthusiastic, to put it mildly. Mozz now obediently recites the line "well, we don't want you wasting away" when I mutter something about "may as well just finish off that last little bit...")

But truly, Tennant's performance was remarkable and I feel very lucky to have seen it. The rest of the cast were of course brilliant too, Patrick Stewart in particular (ok, I can't remember any of the other actors' names but they all shone like shiney little Shakespearian stars).

After the play we ambled back to Melanie's party's hotel, The Falcon and passed a couple of pubs that certainly had a beckoning air of 'come on over to my place' about them (yet were shutting, Hamlet being not one of Shakey's shorts). Becca and I quickly resolved to come back to Stratford-upon-Avon again with more time for pub crawling.

And that was before we discovered the Butterfly Farm! And the boat trips! And the cream teas! And we haven't even started on the House of Shakespeare's cleaner's sister's illegitmate child yet.

So all in all a charming weekend that somehow set me back on track. Saturday I bounced back to London on the 15.39 resolved on spending an unproductive but hugely enjoyable evening on the sofa watching the X Factor and a crap film with Mozz (actually I don't know if it, Ocean's 13 as it turned out, was crap - I fell asleep 5 minutes in) and an unenjoyable but hugely productive Sunday culling my  wardrobe by one third, getting through five piles of laundry and doing many other long-put-off chores whilst Mozz painted the house, non stop (he can barely move his arms now).

As it turned out, I enjoyed Sunday hugely as well. And frankly, if life is still fun when you're washing your boyfriend's pants, it can't be all that bad.

The Bridge Inn, Dulverton, Exmoor

Well this was an unexpected find on a wet weekend in the West Country, and what a lucky find it was too. We were in the area for a wedding - a really beautiful, happy occasion with straw bales for seats and homemade picnics - and with a spare hour chanced upon the Bridge Inn, a blessed haven from the unseasonal damp weather with a choice of 3 cask ales (we drank the imaginatively titled 'Ale' by the local Exmoor brewery), a fake fire (whatever, it provided heat), and a stash of board  games.

"Ooh!" squeaked Mozz in his boyish excitement, "we can play Connect 4!" I took a moment to think back to the last time he played Connect 4 on holiday in Scotland, we'd stopped off at Macbeth's log cabin in Dunoon for a night - I think he got to bed at 5.00 in the morning. I had no idea Connect 4 was such an addictive, competitive game. "We could..." I replied cautiously, "or we could play Scrabble?.." Somehow, no idea how, I got my way without a struggle, and we played our first game of Scrabble together over a pint of Ale in a traditional English Country Pub. I'm not sure I knew what bliss was until then.

My mother kinda lessened the fun factor a couple of days later when, having told her about our weekend, she replied with a chuckle, "oh you're such an old married couple!" I tried to hastily climb the coolometer by retorting "yeah whatever, after that we got leggless with the locals and trashed the place and had an orgy" to which she replied "yes but you didn't really, did you." (Sheepishly) "no, not really. Sorry mummy".

But suffice to say, the Bridge Inn really is a lovely pub and I wouldn't hesitate to go back if I was in the area. I made a note of the other ales which of course I lost, but pretty sure one of them was Otter.

On the Wedding Front, I've just amused myself by ordering 3 copies of Debrett's Wedding Guide, one for us, one for Mozz's parents and one for mine. Part of me is now thinking 'I am not the person I thought I was, she would never have bought a wedding guide let alone Debrett's', another is thinking 'well at least we'll all be singing from the same hymn sheet now, which is ironic because the vicar has vetoed the one hymn, in fact the one thing about the entire wedding, that Mozz really wants' but with crushing defeatism I know the truth is that I want to buy something wedding related to keep it all alive. Which is stupid, because I know that in 8 months time it's all going to feel only too real and I'll be cursing table plans, flowers, favours, hair styles, travel logistics and everything else that I imagine gets squeezed into the last few weeks. So really I should enjoy this lull and make the most of it.

Talking of which, Mozz's programme about Great Big Enormous Bridges has finished so I'm going to go next door and curl up on the sofa with him.

But the Bridge Inn, great pub.