Risotto alla Milanese

Today I will talk about risotto... I will teach you to cook a famous Italian recipe “Risotto alla Milanese”

A brief history of risotto...... in the fourteenth century rice was cultivated on a large scale only in the region of Naples. Thus, due to the close relations were between Aragon, Visconti and Sforza, rice found an ideal location to its cultivation in the Po river plain. During the Renaissance gradually, rice replaced rye, barley and millet for its ease of preparation and nutritious power. Its diffusion across Italy gave origin to hundreds of recipes which contain components of different local cultures. But the founder of all risotto is the Milan risotto, also called saffron risotto.  It makes reference to risotto around the year ‘500 with this name “Lombard rice" and consists of boiled rice combined in layers with cheese, eggs, sugar, cinnamon, cervellata (typical salami from Milan, colored yellow with saffron) and breast of capon. In early ‘900, also the wine appears as an ingredient for Risotto alla Milanse. The story goes that while an artist was preparing the dye to colour the window glass of the cathedral (Il Duomo di Milano), his apprentice, by accident, poured some saffron powder into the nearby pan of rice. Only at the end of 1700 we find Risotto alla Milanese prepare almost like nowadays.


Risotto alla Milanse

Ingredients – for 4 persons

400 grams risotto/rice (plump, medium grain rice that contains a lot of starch, the types Arborio, Carnaroli or Vialone Nano are traditionally best)
1.5 liters of stock/ broth (beef or veal)
1 glass of dry white wine
50 g butter (a good rich butter is best)
40 g of beef bone marrow
40 g Parmesan (24 months)
1 medium onion (finely chopped onion)
0.5 g of saffron pistils

Preparation

Make sure your stock/ broth is simmering before you begin. It's important that the temperature is as high as possible, without letting the stock/ broth boil. The surface of the stock/ broth should just be moving a little. A large thick pot is best for the risotto.

Finely chop the onion and sweat it very gently in 30 g of butter (keep the remaining butter for later). This is known as a soffritto in Italy. Sweat over a medium heat for about 2 minutes. Add the beef bone marrow and continue cooking for another 3 minutes, breaking it with the spoon while stirring. When the onion is soft, add the rice and stir until it is completely coated with the fat. Keep stirring and sweat the rice for a minute or two. Cook until the rice has a transparent look.

Add the wine and keep stirring and let the wine evaporate (it will probably take a couple of minutes). A hot pan will cause the alcohol to evaporate more quickly (and create a nice dramatic effect), but make sure you don't burn the rice or the soffritto.

As the wine cooks away you will see the remaining liquid getting thicker as it's absorbing the starch from the rice. When it’s more or less gone, add beef stock/broth (the stock is kept simmering in order to stay hot), stir once, and let sit on medium-low flame without stirring until next ladle is needed (stock/ broth is slowly absorbed by rice). Do not add too much stock/ broth. The stock/ broth, should be added at the rate of a couple of ladlefuls at a time and when this is absorbed, add more stock/ broth. The rice should never be submerged in stock/ broth. 

Half-way through, “melt” a pinch of saffron in a ladle-full of boiling broth, and add to the risotto.  Keep stirring until all the rice is uniformly colored (golden yellow) and if the stock/ broth is absorbed, add more stock/ broth.

Carry on in this way for about 15 minutes (this time depends on the type of rice you are using).  During this stage, do not leave the pan alone and stir regularly (gently).

After 15 minutes taste the rice every minute until the rice is cooked “al dente” (this means that the rice is tender outside, but still slightly firm to the bite in the centre).  At the same time, the tasting will tell you if you need to adjust seasoning with salt. Regular but gentle stirring is required for the last minutes in order to avoid the risotto sticking to the bottom of the pan. In these last minutes, if the stock/ broth is completely absorbed, you can gradually add a bit more (say a half ladle at a time) because at this final stage you do not want the risotto becoming too watery.

When the rice is perfectly cooked "al dente", turn off flame and add the Parmesan cheese and all the remaining butter (cut into pieces) and stir for few seconds until its completely melted.

Cover the pan with a lid for about 1 minute and allow the risotto to rest before serving it.

Buon appetito!


Tips

- think of risotto as a way of making stock edible with a fork: the quality of the stock you use is the most important factor in the quality of your risotto;
- a common mistake in making risotto is to add too much of the extra ingredients. The star of the dish is the rice, and only very little else is needed;
- the stock have to be hot.