For The Ones With A Big Appetite - Risotto Alla Milanese

Today I cooked yet another typical Italian dish: Risotto alla Milanese. It is, as the name suggests, a traditional dish from Milan. It is quite a filling dish, so a reasonable appetite is prefered when making this risotto!

Getting hungry?

Like the Ragu alla Bolognese I wrote about, I learned how to cook this dish during my study time a few years ago. I had never heard about the dish until my Italian roommate taught me how to make it.

Risotto alla Milanese is a risotto made with Saffran. Although there are probably many version of this dish, I will now show you how I make it, as taught to me by my Italian roommate :)

Ingredients

This recipe, like many classic Italian dishes, requires surprisingly few ingredients:

Some of the required ingredients

• risotto rice (one hand full per person + one for the pot)
• some finely chopped union
• stock (I used about 1.5 liters vegetable stock for roughly 3 servings of risotto)
• grated parmesan cheese
• dry white wine
• some butter
• Saffron

Preparation

To prepare the risotto, you need a pot to keep the stock warm and a skillet. Preferably a heavy one with a thick bottom.

• Heat up the stock in the pot and keep it just under a boil
• Melt a chunk of butter in the skillet and add the chopped onions
  
  Onions getting glassy
• Saute the onions on low heat. To not ruin the flavor of the dish, make sure to not let any of them turn brown!
• Once the unions are looking glassy you can stir the risotto rice in with the onions.

Time to cook the risotto rice

• Now it is time to add a few more chunks of butter and turn the stove up to a medium heat.
• Fry the rice/onion mixture for a few minutes until the outer parts of the rice grains turn a bit translucent. Make sure to stir the rice consistently to avoid the unions from burning.
• The moment the outer parts of the rice grains turn translucent, crank up the heat and add a good slug of the white wine. Don't forget to pour yourself a glass too!

A good amount of wine makes every dish great!

• Let the wine evaporate while stirring continuously.
• Once the moist of the wine is almost evaporated, turn down the heat to a medium simmer.
• Using a big ladle, add some scoops of stock to the rice. Stir occasionally until the added stock has boiled down. At this point also the saffron gets added to the skillet. Just throw it in there!
  
  Saffron are the dried pods of a crocus flower. The taste of Saffron is really strong, only very little is needed.

Notice how the color changed to a nice golden tone after adding the saffron!

• Keep adding the stock to the skillet until the rice is almost cooked. This is roughly when the crunch is gone when tasting the rice.
• If the rice is almost done, stop adding stock and simmer it until the mixture starts to solidify a little bit. Turn off the heat, add the parmesan cheese and some chunks of butter.
  
  CHEESE!
• Stir the mixture (somewhat) aggressively to get the risotto a bit more starchy and cool it down a little bit.
• Now the risotto is done. You can season it with some salt and pepper. Be careful with the salt while the stock can sometimes contain quite a bit of salt already! Adding a bit of good quality olive oil also adds some nice flavor to this dish!

And that's it! Time to enjoy a nice traditional Italian meal!

Mangiare!

Practice Makes Perfect

If you have never made a risotto before, you should really try it. Making a good risotto needs a bit of practice. You don't have to be ashamed if the attempt is a total disaster. Just make sure to not invite any people the first time you cook it ;)

Another thing to keep in mind is that making risotto can't be rushed. The rice simply takes the time it needs. It doesn't care about your dinner schedule. Always make sure that the rice is cooked long enough to avoid a crunchy risotto. It is better to overdo it slightly than to have crunchy rice! If you fail the first time, don't give up! Every attempt will be better than the one before, trust me!

Thanks everyone for stopping by | Michel