recipe: chicken risotto with broccoli pesto

I've shared a risotto recipe before and I make it often, but the other night I made the best risotto I have concocted to date. Much of the reason was Partner-in-Crime's suggestion to add the roasted chicken from the previous night. We didn't have a cup measure so I've used 'units' to describe the amount of rice and broth to use. Recipe below the jump.




Roast Chicken Risotto
1/2 onion
2 tablespoon olive oil
3 units arborio rice
1 unit white wine
5-9 units low sodium chicken broth
2 cups steamed broccoli
leftover chicken (used a drumstick and some extra meat)
Parmesan cheese to taste
Salt to taste

Saute onion in olive oil until translucent. Add the risotto to toast (add more olive oil if necessary.) Add white wine and one unit broth. Slowly add broth unit by unit, keeping the rice in liquid until it is soft, stirring frequently. Add the chicken when the rice is about two thirds of the way cooked. Put it in on the bone, the meat will fall off with a little bit of stirring. Taste the rice and salt as necessary. When the rice is done, stir in the broccoli (and add an extra pine nuts from below.)

[Risotto cooking with chicken]

Broccoli Pesto

1/2 cup toasted pinenuts
2 cups broccoli
Olive oil
Lemon zest

Blend pinenuts, steamed broccoli and olive oil. Add more oil until you get the consistency you want. Add zest (I used about half a lemon) and blend briefly. Spoon pesto over risotto and top with fresh ground pepper and any additional pine nuts (just throw those in whenever possible.)

[Pesto in the blender]