Italy’s creamy answer to rice
Risotto wants to be stirred – but not too much. Sauté the rice until it sings, deglaze with wine, then add hot stock, waiting for each ladleful to be absorbed before the next. At the end comes the “mantecatura”: butter and Parmesan stirred in, off the heat, shaken until creamy.
The classic from Milan, risotto alla milanese, gets its golden-yellow colour from saffron, which – so the story goes – was smuggled into the risotto in the 16th century by a glassmaker preparing for his wedding. And so a humble workman’s dish became the birthplace of a great one.