Ingredients

• 1 leek, cut down the middle and sliced thinly
• 120ml white wine
• 800ml (or thereabouts) stock
• Parmesan or other strong hard cheese (I like grana padano)
• Risotto rice (check the packet for quantity, or just eyeball it)
• Your preference of mixins

Method

1. Fry the leek (and any mixins that need frying) with a little oil in a large sauté or frying pan.

2. Add the rice and fry for a couple of minutes. Supposedly you should be toasting the rice a little here, but I don’t think it makes much difference (plus if you go too far and burn the rice, you have to start over).

3. ‘Deglaze’ with some wine, stir and continue to cook for a minute or so before adding just enough stock to cover everything. Continue topping up with stock and wine until the rice is cooked. Season to taste.

4. Before serving, I like to remove from the heat and dump in a handful of grated parmesan. You don’t have to, but it does wonderful things to the texture.

Mixins

You can make this up as you go along, but here are a handful of examples I like:

• Chicken & mushroom. (Fry the chicken separately to get a nicer browning on it.) You can swap the chicken for a vegetarian alternative pretty seamlessly.

• Bacon & (extra) leek. Add quartered cherry tomatoes right at the end to brighten the flavours.

• Lemon. Add lemon juice to the liquid, with or without other mixins.