As my regular reader will know, we eat a lot of risotto, but curiously I haven’t made one for ages. We roasted a duck over the Easter weekend, and when I boiled up the carcass for stock, quite a lot of meat came off.

Meals for the next few days had been sort of planned, so I stuck the meat in the freezer for a rainy day.  It didn’t rain yesterday, but there was a bulb of fennel that needed eating up, so the duck was pressed into service.

For two people, use 5oz of risotto rice to 1 pint of  liquid.  For this one, I used the juice of a lemon, some rice wine (well, it was handy!) and water to make it up, with a good pinch of Marigold vegetable powder.

Sliced the fennel fairly thinly, and chopped a red onion, and set them to sauté in some oil and butter. When they were soft, I added the rice and stirred it around to coat it, then started to add the liquid a slosh at a time.  Stir it around until the rice has absorbed it, then add more.  Strictly speaking, you’re supposed to keep the liquid simmering, but I generally don’t bother.  I seasoned with salt and black pepper at some point during the proceedings.

The duck got added with the last slosh of liquor.  The whole process took about 20-25 minutes.  It was very nice.