This is a rice-based dish, which largely represents the cuisine of Milan in northern Italy. It can be eaten by itself, as a first course, or as a side dish with stewed meats such as ossobuco—a cut of beef or veal shank, including the bone marrow, which dissolves during cooking, deliciously enhancing the dish. Even risotto with ossobuco is typical in the Lombardy region.
Saffron: A Spice Used for Painting
There are differing stories of origin for risotto Milanese, also simply called “yellow rice” because of its very bright golden color. Here are the two most reliable ones: the first is Sicilian and seemingly refers to a family from southern Italy’s large island who, arriving to Milan, wanted to introduce their Lombard guests to “arancini”—an appetizer of Arab origin consisting of rice and saffron. But suddenly finding themselves lacking the necessary ingredients to prepare the arancini, the cook decided to transform the dough into a simple risotto instead of many small balls in the shape of oranges.
The second source appears slightly more credible because it is discussed in a 500-year-old document, still conserved in the archives of a major library of Milan. It stems from the failure, or revenge-fueled jealousy, of a young aide employed in the mid-1500s by the master glassblower Valerio Belgian Flanders. His duty was to paint the large windows of Milan’s Cathedral, the construction of which had begun more than a century before.
The aide had the task of mixing the different colors, even from saffron powder, to make them more vivid. This spice of distant Asian origins, already cultivated in some regions of central Italy, had never been used for culinary purposes but strictly to color fabrics and revive artistic paintings. Only in some towns of Sicily where the Arabs had long dominated was “riso e zafran” eaten.
Error or Vendetta?
One day in 1574, when the young assistant learned of the marriage of the Belgian artist's daughter—whether out of error or to spite the one he loved without reciprocation, it is unknown—he went into the kitchen and dropped the yellow saffron powder into the large pot in which the rice was cooking, all ready to serve with butter, as was the custom.
When the cook of the wedding banquet noticed the yellow powder in the rice, he tried to hide it by stirring it in, yet unaware of saffron’s color properties. The result: he obtained a completely yellow rice, which, in lack of sufficient time to prepare more white rice, he thought to serve by passing off this colorful risotto as the result of a long-tested recipe.
However, this culinary novelty was much appreciated by all the guests, both for its taste and uniform golden color of the individual grains, which conveyed the idea of money and wealth. Hence, risotto alla Milanese has also come to be considered a “lucky charm” dish.
The Right Wine
We recommend a white wine of medium consistency, not too fragrant to overwhelm the inherent fragrance of the saffron. Excellent choices are Soave, produced in Veneto, and Pinot Grigio, produced among the hills near the maritime cities of Venice (in Veneto), and Trieste (in the region of Friuli Venezia Giulia), the latter on the border with Slovenia.
