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Risotto a LA Mil Anaise

A creamy rice dish cooked with onion, butter, saffron broth, 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 Mil Anaise

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the base

  1. Fry the sliced onion slowly until browned.

  2. Strain the butter.

  3. In the strained butter, fry the rice gently until it turns bright yellow.

Cook and finish

  1. Add the rice to the boiling broth with saffron and stew in a copper pan for 15-20 minutes.

  2. Stir in the butter mixed with flour, and season with pepper or cayenne.

  3. Add grated Parmesan cheese to flavor.

  4. Boil gently for 10 minutes.

  5. Serve hot.

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. Pepper + saffrontop 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
Starch that absorbs broth and releases its own starch, giving risotto its creamy body.
Butter
Fat that coats the rice grains and adds richness and a silky mouthfeel.
Broth
Liquid that the rice absorbs gradually, cooking it through while supplying savory flavor.
Parmesan cheese
Adds salty, savory depth and helps make the finished texture creamy.

The step that matters

Adding the rice to the boiling broth. Rice cooked in fat and then in hot liquid absorbs moisture unevenly if the liquid is not kept at a steady boil, which can leave grains firm or gummy. Keeping the broth boiling as the rice is added helps it cook evenly.

Swap the onion

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

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

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