To get to know each other a bit better today I am presenting a typical dish from birth town: Milan.
Maybe not many of you know that I am Milanese ( this is how you call someone who is from Milan).
I am from "Milan-Milan" ( that from us "Milanesi" is a way of highlight that we are exactly from the city and not 50 km away from it! We are proud of it and want to make sure to be precise!)
I was born in the very city center between Duomo and Navigli. It might look very cool but in reality, it was not a friendly place as a kid. In the '90s ( I know I look like I am still twenty....) it was a place where people would do drugs, smoke and be drunk most of the time. I used to like the people who "had all the coloured hairs and were lying on the sidewalks "while my dad would drag me away from them calling them " punk-a-bestia" ( some sort of insult I guess!)
However being a "Polentona" ( how people like Ylenia might call us from the North as Polenta is one of the typical dish.... did I tell you people from south of italy are very funny?) made me appreciate a lot the origin of our dishes and our cultures.
Originally Risotto alla Milanese was " invented " totally randomly in 1500 when saffron was not something used in the kitchen but by glassmakers. Saffron was added to " butter rice" the typical dish of Milan at the time to colour it. The saffron made the rice look like gold and It was liked a lot as it suddenly looked like a rich dish, rice made out of GOLD!
It therefore became one of the symbols of Milan (Always considered as a rich and growing city. We like to believe we are rich, but we are just colored in yellow =P ).
Risotto alla Milanese is also the main ingredient of the " OSSOBUCO" another amazing northern italy dish made with beef and its bone marrow ( Do not make that face....I can see you.. It is amazing and you could fall in love with it easily!)
Well... As I said, I am from Milan and I wanted to share a bit of my origins!
In fact when I am here in London and I miss my family lunches, this is what I make myself!
As Ylenia has already shared so many recipe from her birth place I felt I had to answer with something from the north to make sure people do not believe ( as people from the south of italy believe deep down!) that good food comes only from the south of italy!
Italy it is a huge country and over the years italy was not always a single country.
We have been dominated by different other cultures as Spanish and Arabs and depending on the historical period we did not always had the same influence on all the country and this is how our culture is so different across the peninsula. We are now a united country but we are very dramatics therefore we like to make fun of one another with dialects, cultural differences and of course with our typical dishes !
We love each other and this is all a way of making fun of each other!
If you have an italian friend, you would probably know by now that we make fun of each other to share love so....
Ready to try the best italian dish you can think of?
Doses for 2 portions
INGREDIENTS
-160-200 g of arborio rice
- 1 table spoon of EVO oil
- 1 tbsp salt
- 15 g butter or spreadable
- saffron pistils 1 teaspoon
- 40 g of parmigiano reggiano (grana padano)
- 1/2 onion
- 1 glass of white wine
- pepper
EQUIPMENTS
- 1 pan
- 1 pot
PROCEDURE
- Put pistils of saffron in a small cup with boiling water and leave it to rest
- chop finely half of an onion, then put to golden in a pan with a tablespoon of EVO oil
- Once the onion is goldened, add the rice and keep stirring until the rice seems almost goldened itself.
- Add a glass of white wine to the rice and keep stirring until the wine is all evaporated or absorbed by the rice). Make sure to have the all lot of wine evaporated before continuing to the next step otherwise the rice will result bitter.
- (You can prepare a broth by dissolving a vegetable stock in boiling water or if you want a healthier version you can follow what I do)
- put a tablespoon of salt in the pan with the rice, then add a bit of boiling water enough to cover all the rice grains.
- Keep adding a bit of boiling water to cover the rice grains every time the rice seems to dry out and keep doing it for about 12-13 minutes, cooking on the hob with a middle temperature
- Add the cup with the saffron
- keep cooking and stirring for few more minutes then add the grated parmigiano and cook for another minute
- At this point you can try the rice and see at what point of the " cooking " it is. As the pasta, it should be " al-dente". If it is not, add a bit more of water and cook for another couple of minutes. If it is, add the butter or spreadable ( optional)
- Your risotto alla milanese or risotto giallo is ready!
this is my version... how is yours?
SUGGESTIONS
E- You can cook aside a sauge cutted finely in a pan and add it to the risotto at the same time that you have added the saffron. This will make the RISOTTO ZAFFERANO E SALSICCIA and yes, it is as amazing as it sounds!
A special thanks for this goes to our good family Friend ( Ebad) who bring us all the time fresh saffron from Iran, making this risotto as good as tasty as even! Good food is made from good ingredients!
ENJOY!
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