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Risotto a LA Milanese

A creamy rice dish with onion, tomatoes, mushrooms, Parmesan, and chicken broth.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Mushroom and chicken are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 4% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 4,172 recipes. Both carry 1-butyl acetate, which smells fruity, banana. The science ↓

Risotto a LA Milanese

Ingredients

Directions

  1. Melt the butter or oil in a hot pan.

  2. Add the chopped onion and cook until brown.

  3. Stir in the chopped tomatoes and soaked mushrooms, cooking for 10 minutes.

  4. Add a handful of rice per person and a little pepper, avoiding salt.

  5. Stir continuously, adding chicken broth as needed.

  6. When the rice is nearly cooked, mix in the grated Parmesan cheese and serve.

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. Mushroom + chickentop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,172 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-butyl acetate (fruity, banana).

  2. Rice + chickentop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,769 recipes

    Shared aroma: (e,e)-2,4-decadienal (fatty, deep fried).

  3. Mushroom + parmesan cheesetop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,199 recipes

    Shared aroma: methyl 2-methylbutyrate (apple, fatty).

  4. Tomato + ricetop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together3,065 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).

  5. Tomato + mushroomtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,719 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-one (mushroom, metallic).

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

What each ingredient does

Italian rice
Absorbs the broth as it cooks, giving the risotto its creamy, tender texture.
Dried mushrooms
Add deep, earthy savoury flavour once soaked and cooked into the base.
Parmesan cheese
Adds salty, savoury richness and helps make the rice feel creamy at the end.
Chopped tomatoes
Contribute acidity and body to the flavour base of the dish.
Onion
Builds a sweet, savoury base of flavour when cooked until browned.

The step that matters

Stir continuously while adding broth. Constant stirring releases starch from the rice surface, creating the creamy texture. Adding broth gradually lets the grains absorb liquid evenly without becoming gluey or dry.

Swap the onion

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against butter, tomato, mushroom, rice, pepper, parmesan cheese, chicken. 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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