ORZOTTO WITH ROAST CHICKEN, PEAS, MISO AND THE KITCHEN SINK
I’m of the school of thought that a dish’s name should simply be a small list of the top ingredients. But what do you when all the ingredients are as important as each other? You improvise and reference the kitchen sink, that’s what you do.
This is a real comfort dish, the orzo cooked in stock looks glossy like normal risotto and feels silky in the mouth. It’s intensely satisfying and cooks in less than 10 min so is a lot less time consuming that risotto. Orzotto is the way forward, you heard it here first!
For this dish, I have gone for strong herbs. If I had thought ahead I would have bought tarragon but I didn’t, I did however have celery leaves and that was a good move. I threw in some wild garlic just because it was there, growing sexily in my back garden.
I do love when I roast a chicken and I have lots of left over meat, it always allows me to play the following day and make a deeply comforting dish of some kind, like this roast chicken pasta from a while back. This week, I had the left over meat from 2 legs and whatever was stuck to the carcass.
I do fuss a lot with the garlic in it, but it allows for a great depth of flavour and I recommend that you do follow those steps. Trust me when it comes to garlic. I am French and know it all after all.
This dish is for hungry adults with a tiny bit left over for seconds. It took me 15 minutes to put together and onto our plates.
Ingredients
- Orzo pasta, 250 g
- Shredded roast chicken (quantity as described above)
- Three cloves of garlic
- Frozen peas (couple of handfuls)
- One tablespoon of white miso paste
- One handful of strong herbs like tarragon, celery leaves or dill
- One handful of wild garlic if available
- One tablespoon of bouillon powder or a veg stock cube
- Parmesan to grate
Method
Use a large and heavy bottom pot. Drizzle a tiny bit of oil and grate two garlic cloves on medium heat. Let it cook for a minute.
Add the pasta and bouillon or crushed cube and add a mug of water. Keep it on medium heat and keep stirring until the water has evaporated. Repeat until the pasta is cooked to your taste. This takes about 5 minutes.
Add the chicken and frozen peas and cover. Cook for 5 minutes.
Check that the chicken and peas are both hot through and through. Grate the last garlic clove and run the shredded herbs and wild garlic through the pasta.
Serve piled with a generous sprinkle of freshly grated parmesan.
