Risotto of basil, olives and confit tomatoes

As I self confessed and unapologetic food nut it was always slightly odd that I'd never ventured to France, arguably the culinary centre of the Universe. All this changed, however, in July this year when I spent a week in Provence. I'd always been vaguely aware that there were huge regional variations in French cookery but the reality of it still came as a bit of a surprise, I may write a separate entry sometime but for now, suffice to say that the cuisine of the region we were in shared a lot of features with Italian cookery, not surprising given the proximity to the border.

Anyway, I came back to England with a vastly improved outlook of food and lots of recipe ideas, the first of which is this risotto, an Italian dish given a French kick with the tastes of Provence.

These confit tomatoes are absolutely beautiful in their own right and work wonderfully well with fish or in salads. The secret to a good risotto is to keep the stock hot throughout the cooking, I use one hob for the risotto pan and another hob to keep a pan of stock hot, using a ladle to stir it and add stock to the risotto as needed.

I apologise if these instructions are quite vague but I feel that making a risotto is very much down to "feel".

This recipe will serve 2 as a good-sized starter.

For the confit tomatoes

Heat your oven to around 70c, or the lowest setting you can get.

Take 10 cherry tomatoes and halve them or, alternatively use 3 large tomatoes, cut into quarters and scoop out the seeds. It's really important to use the best quality tomatoes you can get as this cooking process will vastly intensify the flavour, if there's not much flavour there to start with you're wasting your time!

In a bowl pour 100ml olive oil, a teaspoon of salt, a tablespoon of icing sugar, a good grind of black pepper, 2 thinly sliced cloves of garlic and the leaves from 3 sprigs of thyme (don't use dried thyme, it's nothing like the real thing!). Mix this well together then add in your tomatoes and stir well.

Line a baking tray with greasproof paper and tip the tomatoes on it, separating the pieces. Leave in the oven for 2 - 2 1/2 hours until the tomatoes have dried to a "jammy" consistency.

For the risotto:
Heat up a pint of chicken stock.

In a heavy-based pan heat a good knob of butter and soften a large, finely chopped onion and a couple of cloves of thinly sliced garlic, don't allow them to brown. Next throw in 2-3 good handfulls of risotto rice (arborio or similar) and stir briefly to mix with the onion, garlic and remaining butter. Add a ladle full of the hot stock and stir until the rice has aborbed almost all of this. Keep adding the stock a little at a time until the grains of rice are tender but retain a little bit of bite, you don't want the mixture to become like a porridge, it should still hold its shape.

When the rice is ready stir in a tablespoon of marscapone, a handfull of chopped black olives, the confit tomatoes and some torn fresh basil leaves. Season well and serve into warmed bowls, garnishing with some shaved parmesan.