Hi again and welcome to another stumble in to the world of culinary adventure and today it’s a dish very dear to my soul. No, there’s no romantic back story to it, no nona that made it as a comfort food for when I had tripped and cut my leg as a child, no reminiscence of a first love, no, absolutely nowt. Why it is dear is that I just absolutely love it to bits – it’s comforting, it makes me feel good; about eating, about myself, about the world, even if it just for the momentary. Its delicate flavours of bone marrow, saffron and Grana Padano, the creaminess created by the slow cook of the carnaroli rice in stock and the texture of the plump grains of al dente rice create for me a perfect storm of a dish.
Traditionally Milanese Risotto is eaten with osso buco; slow cooked veal shank. But I do love to eat it as a standalone; and that’s what we’ll do here.
The main feature of the Milanese risotto is its yellow colour, as a result of using saffron. It is noted that in Arabic and European medieval cuisine, when chefs wanted to impress guests, they would add yellow colour to food, often made with egg yolk, which reminded guests of gold, a symbol of nobility.
However, even though rice was cultivated in the north of Italy in the 14th century, influenced by extensive cultivation in Naples in the south, an official recipe for Milanese risotto wasn’t printed until 1829. The classic recipe was described by Felice Luraschi, a celebrated chef from Milan, and titled /Risotto alla Milanese/:
Cut one onion with a crescent knife, add some beef marrow and a little butter, toast and sieve everything, put the needed amount of rice, a little saffron, a little nutmeg, and cook it by adding a good stock from time to time, when half cooked add half a cervellata sausage, let it cook, put the grated cheese and serve
From this recipe another one was developed in the 20th century by Pellegrino Artusi where in his second recipe he adds white wine and ox marrow. He had in fact realised that this marrow made the dish stick to the palate, therefore a touch of acidity was needed to de-grease the mouth and give strength to the risotto. And that is pretty much the recipe in modern day, apart from the sausage.
So in the risotto below we have a crisp Pinot Grigio from Italy to provide the acidity, some saffron threads, garlic clove, onion, butter, carnaroli rice, Grana Padano (a cheese that has little less bite than Reggiano but works really well in the risotto) and home made chicken stock – I do use veal stock also, but as veal is not in season and beef stock can be a little too intense I use chicken. Then finally the beef marrow, which is extracted from a bone that has been cut in half lengthways by the butcher (once extracted I’ll use the bones for stock).
So with all that background I’m sure you just want to get cooking, so let’s get to it!
