Pan-fried chicken w/ green salsa served on lemon risotto

Been reading up on how my fellow Italians eat up on the other side of the boot. So…..they prefer to feast on rice to pasta, white sauces rather than red ones and quite partial to a bit of cheese. So based on all of the above and researching Piedmontese recipes (‘The food of Italy-Claudia Roden’ one of my faves for regional cooking.) I came up with this little dish from a combination of recipes. The risotto & salsa recipes are inspired by Claudia’s, the chicken is mine. 🙂

Green salsa

25g flat parsley
15 mint leaves
1 tbsp capers
20g baby gherkins
Handful of breadcrumbs
1 garlic clove
1 tbsp white wine vinegar
5 tbsp olive oil
1 tsp sugar
Salt & Pepper

• Add all the above ingredients into a food processor & blitz into a sauce.

Pan-fried garlic Chicken

6 chicken thighs
2 garlic cloves
Olive oil
1 tsp thyme, dry
1/2 tsp sage, dry
1 tbsp white wine vinegar/white wine
Salt & Pepper

• Fry the garlic in the olive oil in a wide sauce pan on a low heat
• After 5 minutes, add the dry sage & thyme and cook for another 5 minutes.
• Then add the chicken thighs in the pan, season and cook for 20-25 minutes, turning the chicken occasionally. Half way through cooking add the white wine vinegar.

Lemon Risotto

300g Risotto
1 onion, finely chopped
1 litre of vegetable stock
1 glass if white wine
1 lemon, zest & juice
50g Parmesan, grated
2 tbsp Mascarpone
25g unsalted butter
Salt & Pepper
Olive oil

• Fry the onion in olive oil on a low heat until soft
• Add the risotto rice, stir until it’s well coated for a few minutes.
• Stir in the wine, and cook until absorbed. The add the stock, ladle by ladle, stirring continuously and allowing it to be absorbed before adding another ladle
• Risotto usually takes 20 minutes to cook
• When the risotto is cooked, add the lemon zest, juice, butter, parmesan & mascarpone. Stir
• Serve the pan-fried chicken on top of the lemon risotto & add the green salsa.