Anne Morgan Unlike most risottos, Delia Smith’s chicken liver risotto is cooked in two pans at once, with arborio rice simmered in white wine and stock in one and a sauce of browned livers, mushrooms, bacon and tomato in the other. The sauce goes over the rice with grated Parmesan, a supper for 2 or 3 in about an hour.
Her Complete Cookery Course has it in the rice chapter, in the 1983 edition and again in the 1992 revision, and it’s the same recipe in both. The 1992 book simply lists the two pans apart, so each one gets 40g of butter and the stock is split between them.
On the plate you get soft, moist rice under a dark sauce, rich from the liver and salty from the bacon, with Parmesan melting into the top.
Delia Smith’s Risotto with Chicken Livers and Mushrooms
Course: DinnerCuisine: ItalianDifficulty: Easy2-3
servings15
minutes45
minutes705
kcalArborio rice with a quick liver, mushroom and bacon sauce spooned on top, both pans going side by side for a weeknight supper.
Ingredients
- For the sauce:
40g (1½oz) butter
1 medium onion, thinly sliced
50g (2oz) streaky bacon, rind removed and chopped
225g (8oz) chicken livers, cut into lobes
225g (8oz) mushrooms, sliced
150ml (5fl oz) boiling chicken stock
1 bay leaf
1 heaped tablespoon tomato purée
1 teaspoon dried basil
salt and freshly milled black pepper
- For the risotto:
40g (1½oz) butter
1 medium onion, chopped
Italian arborio rice, measured to the 225ml (8fl oz) level in a measuring jug
150ml (5fl oz) dry white wine
725ml (1¼ pints) boiling chicken stock
- To serve:
25g (1oz) Parmesan, grated
Directions
- Start the sauce: Melt the butter in a fairly large saucepan and cook the sliced onion until soft and golden. Add the bacon and cook for 2 to 3 minutes more, then leave it to one side.
- Start the rice: Melt the butter in a bigger saucepan and soften the chopped onion. Stir in the rice and cook until it’s lightly browned, then pour in the wine and let it cook, uncovered, over a low heat until it has almost all gone.
- First stock: Add a generous 275ml (10fl oz) of the boiling stock, cover and cook over a gentle heat for about 20 minutes.
- More stock: Uncover and add the rest of the stock a ladleful at a time, letting each one be absorbed before the next, for as long as the rice needs it. You’ll probably use all 725ml.
- Livers: While the rice cooks, turn the heat under the sauce up high, add the chicken livers and brown them well, then stir in the mushrooms and cook for 2 to 3 minutes.
- Simmer: Add the 150ml stock, the bay leaf, tomato purée and basil, season, and simmer gently for 10 minutes until it has reduced to a good sauce consistency. Keep it warm.
- Serve: When the rice is tender, spoon it onto warm plates, spoon the sauce over the top and sprinkle with the Parmesan.
Notes
- Frozen chicken livers are fine, but she asks for them to be thawed right through before you start.
- For fresh basil, her ragù bolognese in the same book uses 1 tablespoon chopped in place of 1 teaspoon dried.
- She measures the rice by volume in a jug. If you'd rather weigh it, 225ml of arborio is roughly 185g, my own conversion.
- My own advice is to fish out the bay leaf before serving and to check the livers have no pink left in the middle, as undercooked chicken liver can cause food poisoning. The NHS advises against eating liver when pregnant.
FAQs
Which rice should I use?
Arborio, the risotto rice grown in northern Italy. Her guide to rice says a true risotto needs it, as the grains are rounder and plumper than long-grain and turn creamy with regular stirring instead of staying fluffy and separate. She also warns that the all-purpose Italian rice sold for everyday cooking isn’t true risotto rice.
There are two kinds of arborio in her guide, a very white one with chalky-looking grains and a browny-yellow, more polished one that’s treated to keep the grains firmer. For this risotto I’d pick the chalky white kind, my own preference.
What does ‘cut into lobes’ mean?
Each chicken liver is two lobes joined by a thin strip, so you separate them into two pieces. Trim them first the way she does for her lasagne in How to Cook Book Three, rinsing them under cold running water and drying them well on kitchen paper.
Then pull off any skin and snip out tubes or odd bits of fat with kitchen scissors. Pieces of an even size all brown at the same rate in the hot pan.
Do I have to stand and stir it all the time?
No, because unlike her risotto alla milanese this one spends its first stretch under a lid. Her note on Italian rice, printed with the milanese and covering this recipe too, still talks of an open pan and plenty of stirring near the end.
So I’d stir more as the last ladlefuls go in, and stop while there’s still a little liquid showing. On the milanese page she wants a risotto a little loose, never mushy.
Does she have a chicken risotto without livers?
No, I can’t find a plain chicken risotto in any of her cookbooks, so to my mind this liver one is the nearest she comes. For chicken and rice together, her Basque chicken with brown rice cooks it all in one pot.
If you’d still like a chicken version of this risotto, diced raw chicken breast browned in place of the livers would work in the same sauce, as long as it’s cooked through, which is my own swap.
What else can I make with chicken livers?
Her chicken liver pâté with Cognac sets in six little pots and comes with a red onion salad. In the same Complete Cookery Course, her ragù bolognese browns 75g of finely chopped livers with the minced beef.
