Ingredients:

2 plump chicken breasts,
250g risotto rice, 1.5 onions,
1 clove of garlic, 1 bell pepper,
4 closed-cup mushrooms,
1 cube/50ml vegetable stock,
1 lemon and some fresh basil

In case you haven’t noticed, this is Farmhouse Breakfast week. Greedy, overweight farmers everywhere are hoping that the nation will eat a ‘healthy’ breakfast to fill their already overflowing purses. Their insidious plans will have you reading this stuffed with Free Range eggs, smoked bacon and honey-covered, whole-grain muesli. But let’s not pander to them. Based on an in-depth survey of freshers viewing my house, the average student eats around 5 eggs a week - that’s 50,000 at York alone. So forget breakfast. Lets talk about the evening meal.

Poaching chicken avoids overcooking, reduces sunflower-oil intake and lets you flavour the meat. So cut two chicken breasts in half lengthways and place them in a couple of pints of boiling veg stock for about 20 mins or until cooked. While you do this with an air of importance, order your minion to chop stuff. As the chicken bubbles away, take a large saucepan and lightly brown the onion in a splashing of oil. Add the garlic, pepper and mushrooms in that order. This should all be done on a low heat - if it is too hot the result will be a ruined crispy mess, which happened to us twice.

When all of that is nearing mulchiness, add the risotto rice (cheap and delicious) for a minute or so. If you do all this as slowly as we did, the chicken will be cooked. Remove this from the stock and place out of the way - possibly covered in aluminium foil if you didn’t use it all making your space-man costume. Gradually add the now chickeny veg stock to the risotto as the rice absorbs it and begins to cook - don’t drown it. When the rice is al dente, tear the chicken into strips and add to the risotto. Chuck in the juice of a lemon, salt and pepper, a glass or so of the wine and the minion-chopped basil.

The final stage: find something that resembles a casserole dish and heat in the oven on pizza-cooking heat for ten minutes. Take a deep breath. It’s done. Sprinkle your risotto with parmesan, open another bottle of white and look for a clean fork.

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