Risotto alla Milanese

Ingredients

• a generous pinch of saffron threads
• 1.2 litres hot vegetable stock
• 80 g butter
• 1 small onion, chopped as finely as you can
• 320 g carnaroli or arborio rice
• 120 ml dry white wine
• 80 g parmesan, finely grated

Method

1. Steep the saffron

   Crush the threads between your fingers into a ladleful of the hot stock and leave them to bleed. Saffron dropped straight into the pan gives you yellow streaks; steeped first it colours the whole thing evenly.

   10 min

2. Soften and toast

   Cook the onion very gently in a third of the butter until soft and completely colourless, then add the rice and stir for two minutes until the grains are hot and glassy at the edges.

   12 min

3. Wine

   Pour in the wine and stir until the pan smells of nothing but rice again. Leaving raw wine in it makes the finished dish taste thin and sour.

4. Feed it stock

   Add hot stock a ladle at a time, stirring steadily, waiting until each addition has almost gone before the next. Pour in the saffron stock about halfway through.

   18 min

5. Mantecare

   At 18 minutes taste for a faint firm centre, then take the pan off the heat and beat in the rest of the butter and the parmesan hard for a full minute. This is the step the dish lives or dies on — off the heat, cold butter, and real force.

6. Rest and serve

   Cover for two minutes, then loosen with a splash of stock until it ripples when you shake the pan. Serve it in warm shallow bowls, spread thin.

   2 min