Cooking with Leftovers

My grandmother, Margaret de Wet, with me at my 21st birthday party, quite a few years ago
My waste-not-want-not grandmother (read more about her here) would have been delighted with the dinner I cooked last night.
The plan was to make risotto, by popular request from the kids (how cool is it to have kids that ask to eat interesting food, even if Sophie technically probably no longer qualifies as ‘kid’). In the fridge I already had chicken stock that I’d made from the bony and other remains of chickens I’d wood-roasted over the weekend.
Scratching through the fridge revealed a dried-out saucisson. It had reached this state as a result of trying to stretch the supply, and instead had ended up going beyond the point of pleasurable eating, which proves that delayed gratification is bollocks. So, I sliced it and then popped the slices under the grill to get them all nice and crispy. Thereafter the slices went into the pot of simmering chicken stock to soften them, and to extract the crispy pork flavours.
My fridge foraging also revealed two frozen (cooked) pork chops, which I defrosted and sliced into cubes. The night before we’d had a pasta with prawns, so I fished (sorry!) the prawns out of the pasta and set them aside as well. I have an aversion to surf and turf, but I do make an exception for prawns and porky stuff. Actually, scallops and crispy cured pork bits are also a great combination.
Vegetable components were green beans, frozen peas, and – for the hell of it – a tin of sweetcorn.
I’m not going to go into the detail of cooking a risotto (if there are enough requests I’ll add my method), but all the above went into the pot at the required moment and ended up tasting rather delicious, if I say so myself.
Happy kids, happy dad.
Leftover risotto for lunch, anyone?
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