Skip to main content
Main

Milanese Rice

A creamy rice dish cooked with stock, onion, butter, saffron, and Parmesan cheese.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

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 ↓

Milanese Rice

Ingredients

Directions

Cook the rice

  1. Combine the rice, boiling white stock or milk, and chopped onion in a saucepan.

  2. Cover and boil for 20 minutes until the rice is cooked and dry.

Finish and rest

  1. Blend the saffron with the butter in a small bowl.

  2. Stir the saffron butter and grated Parmesan cheese into the cooked rice.

  3. Season with pepper and coarse sea salt to taste, and mix well.

  4. Cover the saucepan and let it sit by the fire for 10 minutes.

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. Milk + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

    Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).

  4. Rice + milktop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together7,374 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

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

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

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

What each ingredient does

Patna rice
Absorbs the stock and softens while staying distinct, giving the risotto its body.
White stock or milk
Supplies the liquid that the rice absorbs as it cooks, adding moisture and flavour.
Butter
Adds fat that makes the rice rich and glossy when stirred in at the end.
Parmesan cheese
Adds savoury, salty depth and helps the rice turn creamy when stirred in.
Saffron
Gives the rice its golden colour and a distinctive, aromatic flavour.

The step that matters

Cover and boil for 20 minutes until the rice is cooked and dry. The rice must absorb the liquid gradually and fully; if the lid is lifted or heat is too high, the grains can cook unevenly or stick to the pan.

Swap the onion

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

  1. Tomatofits better
  2. Potatofits better
  3. Capsicumfits better
  4. Onionthe original

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

You might also like

Rice and Cheese CasseroleRice and Cheese Casserole23 recipesCheese RiceCheese Rice12 recipesMacaroni and CheeseMacaroni and Cheese102 recipesRice FrittersRice Fritters84 recipes