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Risotto a LA Milanaise

A saffron‑flavored rice dish cooked with onion, butter, flour, pepper, and Parmesan cheese.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Rice and saffron work together. They rank in the top 2% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 629 recipes. Both carry eucalyptol, which smells eucalyptus, herbal. The science ↓

Risotto a LA Milanaise

Ingredients

Directions

Make the onion butter

  1. Fry the sliced onion slowly until browned, then strain the butter.

Cook the rice

  1. In the same butter, fry the rice gently until it turns bright yellow.

  2. Add the rice to the boiling broth and stew in a copper pan for 15 to 20 minutes.

Finish and serve

  1. Stir in the butter mixed with flour, pepper or cayenne, and Parmesan cheese.

  2. Boil gently for 10 minutes and serve hot as a potage.

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. Rice + saffrontop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together629 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  2. Saffron + peppertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together781 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  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
Its starch thickens the broth into a creamy texture as it stews.
Butter
Fat that carries flavour and adds richness to the rice and finish.
Onion
Browned slowly in butter, it adds sweetness and savoury depth to the dish.
Broth
Liquid that the rice absorbs as it cooks, supplying the main flavour.
Parmesan cheese
Adds savoury depth and body when stirred into the finished rice.

The step that matters

Frying the rice until bright yellow. Toasting the grains in butter coats them in fat, helping them keep their shape and release starch slowly so the dish turns creamy rather than gluey.

Swap the onion

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

  1. Spinachfits better
  2. Asparagusfits better
  3. Tomatofits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against rice, saffron, butter, flour, pepper, 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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