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Risotto a LA Milanaise

A creamy rice dish cooked with broth, onions, butter, and Gruyère and Parmesan cheeses.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Cheese and parmesan cheese match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 3% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,041 recipes. Both carry ethyl 2-methylbutyrate, which smells fruity, apple. The science ↓

Risotto a LA Milanaise

Ingredients

Directions

  1. In a saucepan, melt the butter over medium heat and sauté the chopped onion until soft.

  2. Add the rice and a little broth, cooking until the rice is partially tender.

  3. Gradually add more broth until the rice reaches a good thickness, stirring to prevent sticking.

  4. Once the rice is cooked, stir in the grated cheeses, a small piece of butter, salt, and white pepper.

  5. Mix well and serve immediately.

Recipe from a historical cookbook (Internet Archive).

Transcribed from a scanned cookbook and modernised for today's kitchens. Where the book gave no heat or time, or said "a moderate oven", the temperatures and times here may be modern equivalents rather than the book's own figures.

Explore the science

The flavor team

The pairs that carry this dish. Each one is judged two ways: how much their aromas overlap, and how often cooks already put them together.

  1. Cheese + parmesan cheesetop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,041 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl 2-methylbutyrate (fruity, apple).

  2. Butter + cheesetop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together7,962 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).

  3. Butter + parmesan cheesetop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,163 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  4. Rice + parmesan cheesetop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together879 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

  5. Onion + ricetop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together10,433 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Rice
Starch that absorbs broth and releases starch, giving the risotto its creamy body.
Broth
Liquid that the rice absorbs gradually, cooking it while keeping it moist.
Parmesan cheese
Melts into the hot rice, adding savory depth and creaminess.
Gruyère cheese
Melts smoothly into the rice, adding nutty flavor and extra creaminess.
Butter
Adds richness and a silky texture to the finished risotto.

The step that matters

Adding the broth gradually. Adding broth a little at a time and stirring lets the rice release starch slowly, producing a creamy texture. Adding it all at once leaves the rice unevenly cooked and the dish soupy or gummy.

Swap the white pepper

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (butter, onion, rice, cheese, parmesan cheese):

  1. Garlicfits better
  2. Celeryfits better
  3. Thymefits better
  4. White pepperthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against butter, onion, rice, cheese, parmesan cheese. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.

“What each ingredient does” and “The step that matters” were written by Claude from this recipe’s own method and reviewed in samples by CompKitchen.

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