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Writer's picturemuna ahmed

Risotto in Fashionable Milan

MILAN, ITALY

The fashion and finance capital of Italy, Milan is a calm, cool, and collected city where traffic flows in an orderly manner and trams rumble along carefully paved streets. Innovation is part of the lifestyle, but thankfully culinary classics such as risotto never change radically. A rich and refined dish, risotto alla milanese uses bounty from the fertile plains and hills of Lombardy.

Standing on a street in Milan, you could be forgiven for thinking you’re in Switzerland rather than northern Italy, as efficiency and business are obviously paramount. Milan lies at a providential crossroads of transalpine trade routes and boasts a remarkable heritage of art and architecture from the 14th and 15th centuries when it was ruled by powerful families such as the Viscontis and Sforzas. Money and art continue to fascinate today, and the city is home to both the Italian stock exchange and many of the world’s leading fashion houses. However, culinary traditions have not been sacrificed for business, and at lunchtime, a stream of office workers put down their technological tools and head out onto the street in search of sustenance. Rediscovering the healthy custom of a sit-down meal from bygone days when workers went home for a full three courses, Milan’s citizens now take a break to dine in eateries that range from glamorous greenhouses to traditional family trattorias. Milan’s long-standing dishes still shine strong. Thanks to the extensive wet fields to the west and south of the city, where the country’s best rice varieties, such as vialone nano and carnaroli, are successfully cultivated, risotto is a constant on city menus – especially risotto alla milanese. The cooking process is drawn out, like the eating. It begins with a slow soffritto, where an onion is gently sweated in olive oil. The rice is added and stirred, and then the heat is turned up, and a rich, meaty broth is added, in small ladlefuls – one containing a pinch of saffron – until the rice is just tender. Finally, butter and grated parmigiano cheese are beaten in, giving the rice a creamy texture and satin finish. The dish is also known as risotto giallo (yellow) for its saffron-bestowed golden sheen. Saffron is the dried filaments of a type of crocus grown in limited quantities in Abruzzo in southern Italy, as well as in Spain, but it originated in Persia, as did its name. The pretty lilac flowers are painstakingly harvested to produce the most expensive spice in the world, lending Milan’s version of this most Italian of dishes the warm yellow of a gentle Italian sun.





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