Full English orzotto

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Not much to report again today, as mum has again been feeling really unwell and spent most of the day in bed. I didn’t want to disturb her, so I spent most of the day sitting on my bed, messing around on my phone and watching the first spots of drizzle turn into the sort of steady rain we’ve been needing for much of the summer.

While that makes for a restful day (for me, at least; not so much for mum with her persistent stomach pain), it means I don’t have much to write about this evening.

So instead I’ll try to describe how I make up a recipe, as I did tonight.

I started with four chipolatas and three rashers of bacon: both Tesco Finest and very tasty, but not enough to make a meal for two people on their own.

I considered doing a pasta bake, but I would need to use a tin of tomatoes and mum is currently in an “I don’t like tomatoes” stage.

Then I remembered I’d bought some orzo¹ a few weeks ago, for a pasta salad I ended up not making. A quick Google of ‘orzo recipes’ brought up a recipe for orzotto (risotto, but made with orzo instead of rice) with blistered cherry tomatoes and halloumi.

We didn’t have halloumi (although I’m working on converting mum to the pleasures of squeaky cheese), but we did have bacon, and sausages, and my brain somehow combined these things into full English orzotto. 🤷‍♂️

If you want to try it:

Ingredients

• Four chipolatas (I used Cumberland, but any type will do)
• Three rashers of dry-cured bacon
• 10 baby plum tomatoes (or other small tomatoes), halved
• Generous 1tbsp tomato puree
• Orzo (I don’t know how much I used, but a quick search online suggests around 100g for two people)
• Black pepper (and salt, if you feel it needs it)

Method

Cook the orzo in plenty of boiling salted water according to packet directions.

While it’s cooking, cook the chipolatas and bacon in a frying pan big enough to hold the pasta. When they’re cooked, remove them from the pan and chop into pieces.

In the same pan, cook the tomatoes until starting to soften and brown. Add in the chopped bacon and sausages, the tomato puree, and a generous splash of the pasta cooking water.

Drain the orzo, add it to the pan, and stir everything together. Season to taste, and serve. A fried egg might be nice on top, but I only thought of that afterwards, sadly.

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1. If you’ve never heard of orzo, it’s a type of pasta shaped like large grains of rice, popular under various names in southern Italy and in parts of Greece. ↩︎