Risotto Milanese Recipe
An Original Recipe by Lorraine Elliott
Recipe Overview
Preparation time: 10 minutes plus soaking of saffron
Cooking time: 35 minutes
Serves: 2
Ingredients Needed
- 20ml/0.7flozs boiling water
- 2 fat pinches saffron
- 40g/1.4ozs bone marrow or butter
- 60g/2ozs white or brown onion, finely diced
- 320g/11.3ozs carnaroli rice (do not wash!)
- 150ml/5flozs white wine (dry, not sweet)
- 4 cups/1000ml/1 quart beef or chicken broth
- 1 cup/250ml hot water (you may need a little more or less)
- 120g/4ozs cold butter, cubed
- 80g/2.8ozs parmigiano reggiano cheese, grated, cold
Step-By-Step Instructions
Step 1 - Soak the saffron threads in the boiling water for as long as possible, from 2 hours up to 24 hours. Place the broth in a pot and heat up to a gentle simmer. Heat the bone marrow or butter in a large frying pan and sauté the onion in it for 3-4 minutes or until translucent and cooked through but not caramelised. Add the rice and mix with the butter toasting the rice for 2 minutes. Then add the wine and simmer for a minute. Then add a ladle-ful of hot broth and stir in.
Step 2 - Keep adding in ladles of the hot broth. When 3/4 of the way through the broth, strain the saffron water, catching the threads in a sieve. Stir this in and stir. Keep adding the remaining broth and then the water by the ladle until the rice is tender and uniformly bright yellow. If there are any little brown bits from the marrow remove these. Add the cold butter cubes and stir rapidly and allow to melt and then add the cheese also stirring rapidly. Spoon into a plate and serve immediately. To make it sit flat on the plate, move the plate horizontally back and forth where the rice will cling to the plate and smooth out. I love serving this with osso bucco alla Milanese and gremolata.
Personal Note
Ever since I learned how to make risotto properly I can't stop making it. I love how simple it is and I love the texture of it. Mr NQN used to hate risotto because he found it dry especially when you'd get this thick pile of it, but this version with the all'onda waves is sheer perfection. I like to think that as far as risotto goes, I've got game.
Mr NQN is someone with no game, well in one sense of relationships. He's like the antithesis of a player. When we first started seeing each other it was in Hong Kong where he was expatriated to set up an overseas office of a company. We were watching tv in my hotel room and around midnight he left but ended up leaving his wallet behind with me. I didn't realise it until the next day when I saw that it had slid way under a pillow. And of course the next day I had to call him to let him know that he had left it behind. And the rest they say, is history.
I was watching a tv show where they dubbed this move the "classic leave behind. I turned to Mr NQN and pointed at the tv. "That's what you did!" I exclaimed, reminding him of Hong Kong. He remembered it but he swears he didn't do it deliberately. I mean what person leaves behind something as personal and important as a wallet but as I say, he really has no game!
So tell me Dear Reader, do you think you have a good game at something be it risotto making or relationships? Do you like or have you tried risotto Milanese?