What I had for dinner last night was a lovely risotto which I make all the time because of how versatile they are. I love how you can chuck everything in the fridge in there and pretty much always end up with something really yummy.

The one I made last night was a slightly more elevated version of my standard Prawn and Pea risotto so I thought I’d write the recipe down so I don’t forget. It’s also a fab student meal because It’s one pan, cheap, easily adapted to what veg you have and lasts well in the fridge for leftovers/ lunches.  

So, without further ado…  

Ingredients:

½ Leek  

1 500g bag of frozen cooked prawns  

250g of frozen peas  

150g of arborio rice  

1 handful of dill 

4 cloves of garlic  

1 white onion  

2 tablespoons of butter 

2 tablespoons of lemon juice  

1 stock cube (chicken or fish) 

Method:

Ok, really really simple, start by chop everything up!  

Keep the onion and garlic small, chop the leak into small disks, when I made this the first time, I used a full leek which was too much lol.  

Put the butter in a high sided frying pan and let that get hot, add your chopped leeks and onion and sweat all of that off for about 7 minutes; add the garlic and cook that off for a further 3 minutes. Pour in the full bag of cooked prawns, fry them off until they’ve got a little bit of colour and then set all that veg aside in a separate bowl and put the pan back on the heat. Add about a tablespoon of olive oil and add your risotto rice. Fry that off until it goes slightly translucent at the edge of each grain and its slightly toasted. Then add in the juice from the leeks, prawns and onions, which will have accumulated some nice fishy stock by this point of sitting on the side. If you have some white wine, add this in too but I don’t think it’s necessary, I just added some lemon juice which I think is a nicer addition to compliment the dill and balance the prawns.  

In the meantime, dissolve a stock cube (I used chicken, fish would be better) in 900ml of boiling water. Once the rice has absorbed the fishy water and lemon juice, add a ladleful of stock, waiting for it to have almost completely absorbed before adding another. Repeat this process until you have about half the stock left, around 20-25 minutes and then add in your leeks, prawns and onions. Combine all of this and then continue to add stock until you have a small amount left. At this point, add your frozen peas, a handful of dill -reserving a bit for garnish- and salt and pepper to taste. And that’s it! When finished, the rice should be cooked but have a small bite to it, this is how risotto rice should be served, otherwise it turns to rice pudding!  

Garnish with dill and some more black pepper and enjoy!

– Koré