A shallow white plate of saffron-yellow risotto spread in an even wave, a spoon lifting a creamy portion, saffron threads and a chunk of Grana beside it

Risotto alla Milanese, the Old Way: Saffron and Beef Marrow

Risotto alla milanese is the yellow one. A pinch of saffron steeped in hot broth turns a pan of rice the color of old brass, and Milan has been cooking it that way for well over two hundred years. The oldest printed Milanese recipes start the rice in butter and beef marrow, and the recipe Milan registered in 2007 still does. Two or three marrow bones give up a spoonful of soft fat that melts into the onion and lends the finished rice a savory weight butter alone does not reach.

The rest is the technique every risotto shares: grains toasted in that fat, hot broth added a ladle at a time, and a hard beating with cold butter and grated cheese off the heat, until the rice loosens enough to spread across a warm plate on its own. This version follows Milan closely and says plainly where it departs. It uses Carnaroli, a rice bred on the plain just southeast of the city, and saffron threads rather than powder. The wine is optional, and that position has a history of its own.

Where the yellow came from

The story Milanese tell is set in 1574, on the building site of the cathedral. A Flemish master, Valerio di Fiandra, was making stained glass for the Duomo, and his assistant had earned the nickname Zafferano for slipping saffron into his pigments to brighten them. At the wedding of Valerio's daughter, the story goes, the assistant got the cook to tint the buttered rice with the same spice, half as a prank. The Veneranda Fabbrica del Duomo, the body that still looks after the cathedral, tells the story itself and calls it a legend. Tell it at the table as what it is.

The paper trail for the yellow dish begins in 1809. An anonymous Milanese cookbook, Il cuoco moderno, signed only with the initials L.O.G., gives a riso giallo in padella, yellow rice in the pan, and almost the whole modern dish is already there: onion, butter and beef marrow as the base, raw rice toasted in the hot fat, broth added gradually, saffron, and cheese to bind. It also calls for cervellata, a Milanese sausage of the period made from pork and veal with aged cheese and saffron, so some of the dish's early yellow may have come in inside the sausage.

Twenty years later the cook Felice Luraschi printed the name that stuck. His Nuovo cuoco milanese economico of 1829 has a risotto alla milanese giallo built on beef fat and marrow and half a cervellato, with "poco zafferano, poca noce moscata," a little saffron and a little nutmeg, finished with grated cheese. The nutmeg has since dropped out. So has the sausage.

The rice changed more than the recipe did. Luraschi's contemporaries cooked what Italian paddies grew then, a mixed population called nostrale or comune, with small round grains. Carnaroli came out of crossings of Vialone and Lencino made by the agronomist Ettore De Vecchi near Paullo between 1939 and 1945, and was only registered in 1974. Milan's golden rice is more than a century older than the grain it is now judged on.

Wine, marrow and the long argument

Whether the dish takes wine is a long-running quarrel, and the printed record, laid out by date, gives both sides ammunition.

Date Source Fat Wine Detail
1809 Il cuoco moderno (anonymous, L.O.G.) Butter, beef marrow, cervellata sausage None Rice toasted in fat, broth added gradually; saffron, cheese to bind
1829 Luraschi, Nuovo cuoco milanese economico Beef fat and marrow, butter, half a cervellato None First "risotto alla milanese giallo"; a little saffron, a little nutmeg
Artusi I La scienza in cucina e l'arte di mangiar bene Butter only None Saffron dissolved in a little hot broth; ground at home if you own a bronze mortar
Artusi II Same book Butter and beef marrow Two-thirds of a glass of good white wine "More complicated and heavier on the stomach than the one before, but more flavorful"
Artusi III Same book Butter Marsala, "two fingers" of a glass Saffron goes in at the end with the last of the butter
2007 City of Milan, De.Co. municipal designation Butter, beef marrow, roast fat None Saffron at two-thirds cooking; grated grana; "never add wine, which would kill the saffron's scent"

Artusi added wine to his marrow version, the richest of his three, and the reason is plain: acidity cuts fat. Milan's own registration, nearly two centuries after the first printed recipe, went back to the older habit and left it out, on the grounds that wine would kill the saffron's scent.

The rule this recipe follows: when the broth is homemade and the saffron is good, cook it Milan's way, without wine. When the broth is bought, or on the thin side, use a third of a cup of dry white and let it cook off completely after the toasting, before the first ladle of broth. Either way it is risotto alla milanese. The dish has had it both ways since the nineteenth century.

What goes in, and what each thing is doing

Rice. Three Italian varieties work here. Carnaroli is the forgiving one: a long superfino grain that holds its shape and stays distinct if you overshoot by a minute, which is why it is the default here. Vialone Nano is smaller and rounder; start tasting it a couple of minutes early. Arborio is fine, with less margin at the end. Never rinse any of them, because the loose starch on the surface is what thickens the broth. How a bag keeps once it is open, and whether old rice cooks differently, is covered in the guide to risotto rice.

Saffron. Saffron is the dried stigma of the saffron crocus, and its color and aroma come from different molecules. The split between them sets the timing in this recipe. The yellow is crocin, a carotenoid that, unusually, dissolves in water. That is why saffron steeps into warm broth and does very little in butter, and it fits Artusi's advice in La scienza in cucina to dissolve it in a little hot broth before it goes into the rice, grinding it yourself if you had a bronze mortar. The smell is mostly safranal, which forms from the bitter picrocrocin as the stigmas dry. Safranal is volatile and cooks off, so the saffron goes in for the last third of cooking, as Milan's registered recipe directs. In his third version Artusi went further and added it only once the rice was done. Stirred in at the start, saffron gives the color but loses much of the aroma. Too much can turn bitter, which is why 0.2 g is enough for four. A 1-gram jar of Spanish saffron (shop Spanish saffron) makes this dish five times over; Herati saffron (shop Herati saffron) from Afghanistan is the other thread on the shelf.

Marrow. Ask a butcher for beef marrow bones cut crosswise, two or three inches long. Two or three should give the 30 g that Milan's registered recipe uses. After twenty minutes at room temperature the marrow pushes out with a thumb. Chop it, keep it cold, and it melts into the butter within a minute of hitting the pan. Without marrow, use 20 g more butter. That is Artusi's first version, which he printed without apology.

Broth and roast drippings. Use a light meat broth, chicken or beef or both, and hold it at a bare simmer the whole time; cold broth stops the rice cooking every time a ladle goes in. Salt it lightly, because it concentrates as it cooks down in the pan. The roast fat in the city's registration is the drippings from a beef roast, both the clear fat and the dark juices under it. A spoonful stirred in with the saffron makes the rice deeper and meatier, and it is optional. Drippings from a roast chicken work in the same spot, though that departs from the beef roast Milan specifies.

Cheese. The registration asks for grated grana; Grana Padano or Parmigiano Reggiano both fit. Grate it fine so it melts before the rice cools.

Ingredients, for four

  • 320 g (about 1 2/3 cups) Carnaroli rice, or Vialone Nano
  • 1.5 liters (6 1/3 cups) light meat broth; about 1.75 liters (7 1/3 cups) in Denver
  • 0.2 g saffron threads, a generous pinch
  • 30 g (1 oz) beef bone marrow, from 2 to 3 marrow bones, or 20 g extra butter
  • 80 g (5 1/2 tablespoons) unsalted butter: 30 g to start, 50 g cold and cubed to finish
  • 1 small onion (about 80 g), very finely chopped
  • 60 g (2 oz) Grana Padano or Parmigiano Reggiano, finely grated, plus more at the table
  • 1 to 2 tablespoons beef roast drippings (optional)
  • 80 ml (1/3 cup) dry white wine (optional)
  • Fine sea salt

Method

  1. Steep the saffron. Bring the broth to a bare simmer at the back of the stove and keep it there. Ladle about 120 ml into a small bowl, crumble in the saffron and leave it at least 20 minutes. The liquid goes from pale to a deep orange-gold; that color is what ends up in the rice.
  2. Free the marrow. Push the marrow out of the bones with your thumb or a spoon handle, chop it finely and keep it cold until the pan is ready.
  3. Soften the onion. In a wide heavy pan over medium-low heat, melt the marrow with the 30 g of butter. Add the onion and a pinch of salt and cook gently for 6 to 8 minutes, until it is soft, translucent and sweet-smelling. Milan's registered recipe takes the onion to golden; this version stops short of color, so the saffron reads cleanly.
  4. Toast the rice. Raise the heat to medium, add the rice and stir for 2 to 3 minutes. The grains should be slick with fat, hot enough that you would not want to hold one, and glassy at the edges around a chalky white center. If you are using wine, pour it in now and stir until the sharp smell is gone and the pan is almost dry.
  5. Feed it broth. Add a ladle of hot broth and stir until it is mostly absorbed, with the pan at a lively simmer, bubbles breaking steadily across the surface. Keep adding broth a ladle at a time and stir often. Constant stirring is not required, but frequent stirring rubs starch from the grains into the liquid, and that starch is the creaminess. The rice should always look just loose, never dry, never swimming.
  6. Add the saffron. About 12 minutes after the first ladle, stir in the saffron with its broth, and the roast drippings if you have them. The whole pan turns yellow in a few stirs. Keep cooking and adding broth.
  7. Taste for doneness. Start tasting at 16 minutes, or 18 in Denver. The rice is ready when a grain is tender all through except for a small firm core you can feel against your teeth, about 17 to 19 minutes at sea level and 20 to 23 in Denver. Stop while the rice is a little looser than you want it on the plate, because the finish tightens it. Season with salt.
  8. Beat in the butter and cheese. Take the pan off the heat. Add the cold butter and the cheese and beat hard with a wooden spoon for about a minute. The rice goes from matte to glossy, and the liquid turns from thin broth into something like a pouring cream. If it has tightened, add a splash of hot broth. Cover and rest 1 to 2 minutes, then spoon onto warm flat plates. It should settle and spread slowly when the plate is tapped on the counter.

In a Denver kitchen

At sea level water boils at 212°F. At Denver's elevation it boils at about 202°F, so a pan of risotto at a lively simmer here is cooking roughly ten degrees cooler, and the rice takes roughly three or four minutes longer to soften at the center. The dry air also pulls broth out of an open pan faster, which is why the ingredient list calls for about an extra 250 ml. The saffron steep, the onion and the finish work the same at any altitude. The Denver altitude guide has the numbers for pasta, beans and baking.

When it goes wrong

What you see Likely cause What to do
Stiff and gluey, sets into a mound on the plate Cooked too long, too little broth at the end, or left standing Stop earlier and looser; add hot broth during the finish; serve the moment it has rested
Chalky center after 20 minutes Broth not hot, heat too low, or altitude Keep the broth simmering and the pan bubbling; in Denver, expect 20 to 23 minutes
Soupy, but the grains are still hard Too much broth added at once One ladle at a time; let each one mostly disappear before the next
Greasy, butter pooling at the edge Butter was soft, or went in over the heat Cold cubed butter, off the heat, beaten in hard
Pale, with little saffron aroma Short steep, old saffron, or saffron added at the start Steep 20 minutes or more; add it for the last third of cooking
Bitter Too much saffron 0.2 g for four
Cheese in strings or clumps Coarse grate, or added over high heat Grate fine; add off the heat with the butter

At the table

In Milan the rice is traditionally served with ossobuco alla milanese, the braised veal shank, on the same plate, an exception to the Italian habit of serving risotto as a first course before the main dish. The two belong together more than it first appears, because the shank is a bone full of marrow, the same fat that started the rice. On its own the risotto is a first course for six, or dinner for four with a green salad.

Leftovers turn into riso al salto, the Milanese way of not wasting yellow rice. Chill it overnight, press it into a thin cake in a buttered nonstick pan, and cook it over medium heat until the underside is a crisp brown crust, then flip it and crisp the second side.

The dish's most famous modern version came out of Milan in 1981. The chef Gualtiero Marchesi served a flat, perfectly smooth disc of saffron risotto with a single square of real gold leaf laid on top and called it Riso, oro e zafferano. It is hard not to see the glassmaker in it. Four hundred years after Valerio di Fiandra's assistant supposedly borrowed saffron from the stained-glass workshop, a Milanese cook put the gold back.

Both saffrons are at 263 Josephine Street in Cherry Creek, Denver, and ship nationwide from theambrosianpantry.com. For a risotto that runs on a different pantry jar, the dried porcini risotto uses the same method with the mushroom soaking liquid in place of some of the broth.

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