With Master MaMT away in Germany, we seemed to have a lot of left-overs last week. The joys of having an “always hungry” teenager around normally!  We’ve missed him though and ready to have him back, eating us out of house and home again!!  One more sleep …

Mr MaMT was also away over the last week, so Miss MaMT and I had quite a feast of cheeky glutenated meals and subsequent left-overs!

Now when I cook up our Friday night butter chicken curry “take-in”, we usually have at least 1-2 decent lunch-time portions over for another day.  Of course, this depends upon whether I cook up a whole 1.5kg chook in the slow cooker or use 4 chicken fillets and simply dice and cook in the Thermomix.  I tend to do the slow cooked chook version more so now, as it’s more economical and I can make it go over two separate meals and make a stock for a few soups, to boot.

This week I cooked a whole chook and used half of it in the curry, which served the three of us and provided a healthy sized lunch portion for Mr MaMT the next day, with extra sauce and cauliflower ‘rice’ left over.  As I had chicken risotto planned for the other half of chicken, the left-over curry sauce and cauli rice also went in to provide our hearty Saturday night dinner!  Lovely!

Here’s what to do to go about making the butter chicken risotto:

• Slow-cook a whole chook all day, eg on Friday, making a stock at at the same time to use in a couple of soups.  Here’s Quirky Cooking’s stock-making method.
• Make the butter chicken sauce for dinner that night, mix in half of the chicken meat and save the other half for the risotto the next day, (ie Saturday), also reserving some of the sauce (about a cup or so).

Now for the risotto the next day:

Place in Thermomix bowl and chop on speed 5 for 3 seconds:

• 1 clove garlic
• 1 small onion
• 1-2 red/green capsicum / peppers, roughly chopped, de-seeded if you wish – or other preferred veg, about 180g worth

Scrape down sides, add and sauté for 4 minutes / 100° / reverse / speed soft:

• 1-2 tbs olive oil

Add and set to cook for 10 minutes, 100°, reverse speed 1.5:

• 350g arborio rice
• 1-2 tbs stock paste
• 1100g liquid, consisting of left-over butter chicken sauce and water

Meanwhile, grab your left-over cooked chicken, pop into the varoma dish and once the initial 10 mins’ cooking time is up, take the MC off and sit the varoma dish on top.

NB: You might even want to add an extra 100g boiling water to the bowl at this stage, so that the risotto doesn’t end up too stodgy – or, if you prefer, add at the end, if need be.
At this point, I also added the left-over cauliflower rice*.  Add some spinach, instead, if you wish.

• Cook for another 6-8 minutes on varoma temp / speed 1.5 / reverse.

* NB:  If you add any extras like this, just try not to go over the 2 litre limit.

Check to make sure the risotto is cooked to your liking, then stir the chicken in and pour the whole lot into an insulated serving dish.  Sprinkle generously with chopped coriander (I was a little too generous, as it’s my favourite herb – Mr MaMT complained!).

This served three ‘hearty’ portions, with one extra for Sunday lunch the next day and I used some of the chicken stock to make a soup too. Gosh, I love getting so much mileage out of a whole cooked chicken!