Ridotto Milanese with Herby Chicken

James treated me to a copy of Delicious magazine and I liked the look of the 'slimmed down favourite' feature where they get a recipe which is traditionally calorific and make a healthier version. In this month's edition, it was Risotto Milanese - a vegetarian risotto made with saffron. It was super simple and required few ingredients. Stock is always singled out as key when it comes to risottos - I generally use cubes of the stuff, strangely enough from Boots. They sell it as part of their Baby Organic range and I have been using it since Kasper was born, mainly because it contains almost no salt and seems tasty enough.

Apart from the seemingly endless pouring and stirring to slowly cook the rice, the dish was actually pretty quick to put together. I added pieces of baked chicken breast which I had coated in Italian-style herbs to give it a bit extra and made it in the afternoon - warming it up later for tea. I omitted the soft cheese as the rice seemed creamy enough without it but I did add parmesan and a squeeze of lemon for James and me. James declared it 'delicious', in keeping with the magazine's title and I expect he'll be buying me next month's copy as a result!