Veronica Valentine and Smoked chicken Risotto

While I was cooking the Arborio rice last night I decided that risotto is a hobby on its own, and not one I am enthused by. It demands your undivided attention over a hot stove for 40 minutes and let me tell you, that’s not fun in Durban right now. We had about four months of overcast weather and then the clouds disappeared last week and we have been cooking! I stood over the pot like a witch, bubbling and toiling and troubling away, trying to see a silver lining…like the steam must be good for my skin…thinking to myself that I now have an entire bag of Arborio rice that is too expensive to neglect in the grocery cupboard, so I will have to sweat some more in the near future! AAARGH!

But like Justme said, it’s worth it!

Onions were fried in a saucepan (one day I will get a Green one) and when glistening, a generous lump of crushed garlic was added. I used red onions for colour. The rice was tossed on top and hot chicken stock was slowly added, a bit at a time, forever! It’s a bit like making mayonnaise, only it takes much longer and is a much hotter process. When nearly cooked, sliced smoked chicken breast and some par-steamed green beans were added and the whole lot was cooked for about a minute. The actual recipe called for sugarsnap peas, but they make Son’s skin crawl for some reason. What a tasty one pot meal! It was served with shavings of parmesan. Definitely a recipe worth repeating – but in winter when you don’t mind so much sweating over a hot stove.

For Valentines Weekend/Day I am going to make my Dear Friend Veronica’s chocolate fridge tart. Its one of those cannot fail jobs like the pineapple one I made last weekend. You make the crust with a packet of Romany creams and butter. Place that in one of those rectangular pyrex roasting dishes. Once the base is made, place in the fridge. I am going to try and make two smaller ones, ’cos I cannot eat one big one all by myself. I will have to give some away. Son and Boet are going to the Midlands for the weekend to swim the Midmar.

Then…

Heat one cup of milk in a saucepan until it is just beyond warm…don’t let it boil. Then add a medium bag of pink and white marshmallows and let them melt into the milk. Add 200g of chocolate, all broken up. Last time I made this tart, I used milk chocolate and it was good but very sweet. I asked Veronica what she thought of using dark chocolate and she said it might be too bitter. This weekend I am going to use 100g of milk chocolate and 100g of dark chocolate and see what happens.

And then…

Whip up one tub of cream and fold into the milk/marshmallow/chocolate mixture! When you have a smooth and uniform mixture, pour over the already cooled biscuit base and then decorate with crumbed flaky, or sugared rose petals and halved strawberries if you want to be more romantic!

Here’s wishing you all plenty warm fuzzy romantic moments this weekend!

Love y’all

C.