Smoked Chicken Risotto

Friday 21 September

It's the last day of summer, and as part of Smoked Chicken Week, we decided to make a risotto with the remains, using the last beautiful little zephyr squashes we had grown as well. 

We had set aside the smoked chicken carcasses from Saturday plus all the bones we'd defleshed on Wednesday and Thursday, and last night we made broth using all those remains, a quartered sweet onion, sprigs of rosemary and sage (we wanted it different from our normal broth, which uses celery and parsley), 7 black peppercorns, and enough water to cover.  It covered and more, as after 3 hours of the slowest bubbling it made 12 cups of broth, including (after straining it and setting it in the fridge overnight) some light green schmaltz to skim off.

So this evening we melted the schmaltz, sautéed some chopped onion and two diced zephyr squashes in it, and added 1 1/2 cups of arborio rice, turning and cooking until the rice went white.  Then we microwaved the pitcher of our smoked chicken broth and added it by ladlefuls, stirring, until the rice had absorbed at least 6 cups of it - don't know why our previous recipes only had about 3 cups of liquid.  

When the rice was tender, we stirred in pieces of smoked chicken (picked from the broth bones as well as the initial pickover of roast birds) and  a little chopped rosemary and salt to taste.  It made a succulent plate of deliciousness, and nothing more was needed for dinner.