Bacon and pea risotto with cranberry sauce

This risotto was inspired by a recipe from my new cookbook 'A girl called jack' by Jack Monroe. I would never have thought to put a sweet sauce with a risotto but it worked really well. The original recipe was bacon and brie, but I improvised and used cream and Parmesan instead, as I had no brie. Risotto is the ultimate comfort food,  I always forget how delicious it is.

Ingredients

Serves 2

100g bacon
½ an onion
40g Brie
140g rice1 chicken stock cube or bouillon vegetable stock
500ml boiling water
fistful of parsley

Optional: cranberry sauce to serve

Method
Chop the bacon into small pieces. Put into a shallow frying or sauté pan. Peel and finely chop the onion, and add to the pan with the bacon. Bring to a low heat. No additional fat is required: the fat will ‘leak’ from the bacon as it heats slowly.
Soften the onions in the bacon fat. When they are almost translucent, add the rice and stir in well to toast the edges.
Make up 500ml of chicken stock. When the ends of the grains of rice have started to turn clear, add half of the stock and stir in. Keep adding the stock gradually as it is absorbed by the rice. (You may find that you do not need all of it – a good risotto should have a soupy texture, but be slightly al dente).
Just before serving, chop the Brie and stir through until it is mostly melted, and scatter chopped parsley through to lift the flavour.
If you have any apple or cranberry sauce kicking around in the cupboard, a teaspoon on top would be divine.