Milano is famous for its risotto, but until just a few decades ago risotto was far too rich for everyday family cooking and was considered a festive food. Every other day, families were cooking their rice with whatever they could find, or even just serving it boiled with a bit of butter or a pinch of parsley. What most families never lacked was some meat stock, usually done from bones since the meat was too costly. yet, often enough the people could not afford even the bones, or preferred to save those money for the next day.
Yet the rice was not served in a stock, rather it was kept quite dry, almost risotto-like. With starchy vegetables like zucca or beets the texture is really almost risottoey, while other recipes get a more soup-like feel, bust still with very little liquid left. So, measuring carefully the liquid is essential. Use as little as you dare and keep some handy and hot in case you need to make additions.
A lot of these recipes call for lardo or prosciutto fat, and nearly all call for butter. You can substitute with a lightly flavored olive oil, but consider that in first place the animal fats used make a flavor difference, and secondly that in any case you re not suposed to use a lot of them: faats were costly, and probably people back than used even less than stated on the recipe. So, better to reduce the amounts than to substitute. If possible!

Riso in cagnone (my own way)

Riso in cagnone can be made with any kind of sauce, and often it is made with a tomato sauce. YOu can even use leftover pasta sauce. But when I make it, I make it like this.
Boil a glass of rice per person until al dente. Meanwhile take a few leves of sage, a sprig of rosemary, and a garlic clove. Melt 15-20 grams of butter per person in a large pan and add the herbs, lightly toasting the, over a very low fire. Drain the rice and add it to the pan. Add some grated Grana Padano and toss for a few seconds. You can add to the butter some diced pancetta, letting it melt before adding the herbs, or a salted anchovy.

Risotto cui burlott (rice and borlotti beans)

4 glasses of rice
1.5 glasses of dried borlotti (or 2.5 glasses of frozen ones)
2 tomatoes, chopped, or 2/3 of a glass of tomato sauce (coarse)
1 small onion
50 grams of butter
grated Grana Padano
salt

Soak the beans and boil them in water until soft. Add the slat only ten minutes before turning off the fire to prevent the beans' skin to harden. Drain them but don't throw away the water they have been boiling in. Melt the butter in a casserole. Add the onion and simmer it until golden. Add the tomatoes and cook the resulting sauce for 5 minutes. Add the the rice and as much of the beans' wter is required to cook the rice with. Halfway (or after about 9-10 minutes) add the beans. When al dente, add the leftover butter and some cheese and stir to melt them.
Notice, this is a fully vegetarian recipe, and it's particularly good in vegetarian diets because the comination of rice and beans provides almost the same amount of proteins as a steak (although they are not as readily usable).

Riis e erburin (rice and parsley)

Cook the rice in hot meat or vegetable stock. There should be some liquid left, but not much. When you eat it there ois supposed to be a couple of spoonfuls left in your bowl or deep plate, not much more. When the rice is al dente, add a big bunch of parsley, thinly minced. Dish and top each dish with a teaspoon of grated Grana Padano.

Riis e zucca (rice and squash)

half a kilo (one pound) of squash
one potato
one small onion
4-5 glasses of rice
butter
grated grana Padano
optional vegetable or meat stock (can be substituted with plain warm water with a pinch of salt)

Seed, peel and dice the squash. Peel and dice the potato. Mince the opnion and sauté it with a little butter in a casserole. Add the vegetables and sauté for a few minutes. Add the stock (or some plain water with a pinch of salt) and cook until the squash and potato are soft. Mash partially the vegetables; they mut not be compltetely puréed, there must be some bits left. Add the rice, adding a bit of warm water if needed. Cook until al dente. The result mut be dense but not as firm as a risotto. Stir in some more butter and the cheese.

Riis e carottol (rice and carrots)

200 grams of rice
6 largish carrots cut into thin slices
one small onion and one celery stalk, both minced
meat or vegetable stock (or just warm lightly salted water)
butter
parsley (minced)
grated Grana Padano

In a casserole, sauté the onion, celery and carrots in a little butter for a few minutes and over a very low fire. Add the rice and the right amount of stock or water (by now you should know: as mush are required to cook the vgetables and later the rice in with very little liquid leftover). Simmer for 5 minutes, than add the rice. Cook until al dente. Complete with freshly frated cheese and a pinch of parsley.

Squash and carrots always invited me to experiment with spices. you can try adding a little nutmeg, or a piece of cinnamon or some grated ginger... Or you may add a little spour cream or yogurt, like one usually does with soups. The result will not be as traditionally Italian, but than cuisine must evolve too ;-P

Riis porr e erbett (rice, leeks and chard)

2-3 young leeks
200 grams very young Swiss chard
4 glasses of rice
meat stock
30 grams butter
grated Grana Padano

Carefully wash and cut the vegetables in very thin slices or rings. Melt the butter and braise the vegetables with a little stock. When they are soft, add more stock and, when it boils, the rice. Serve with the cheese.

Riis e raff (rice and beets)

3-4 glasses of rice
300 grams of beets, as tender and you can find
50 grams of lardo (or of fat removed from sweet prosciutto crudo)
one small onion
parsley
meat stock
grated Grana Padano

Clean and peel the beets, cut them in very thin slices. Boil until tender in lightly salted water. Mince the parsley and onion and dice the lardo or fat. traditionally, the three were worked with the blade of a knife over a board until they turned into a pulp. Melt the mixture in a casserole. Add the stock and, when it starts boiling, the beets and rice. Cook until the rice is al dente. Serve with the cheese.
In the old times, people used the water where the beets had been boiling to make this soup. As usual, the soup must not be watery, just a little softer than risotto.

The last couple of recipes are not yet tested, from a brand new book of WWI recipes.

Rice and lentils

Soak, boil and purée 200 grams of dried lentils. Heat a spoonful of oil or butter in a casserole, add the lentils puré and stir for a few minutes. Add 3 glasses of rice, 10 cm of tomato paste (doppio concentrato) and the water in which the lentils have boiled. When al dente and not watery, add cheese and butter.
Probably, adding a small onion, a stick of celery and a small carrot to the water would make a tastier stock, but this is not in the book...

Rice and artichokes

Cut 3 artichokes in very thin slices. Cook them in 25 grams of lardo (or the fat removed from sweet prosciutto crudo) and a litle oil. After 5.10 minutes add some emat stock and he rice (uhm... 3-4 glasses for 4 people). When al dente completel wuth parsley, butter and cheese.
The recipe originally called for 5-6 artichoke stalks. These are my favorite part of the artichoke, and I find really silly that due to the EU regulations now artichokes cannot be sold with more than 10 cm of stalks. Once peeled and cooked these are wonderful, wery flavorful and tender, more tender than the artichokes themselves.

The End

quote:

leeches

Leeks (porri) perhaps? Leeches (sanguisughe) would not be too appetizing to most. Very close in the dictionary though......

Thanks for the recipes...

Hey Alice... this looks like my grandma's cookbook!!! YUMMY
I have a little addition to your non risotto recipes but I think this is not really from Milan... probably rather from Busto Arsizio, Gallarate...
It's Rice, squash, milk and beans.
You need to cook the beans with the squash with as little water as you can without burning them (you want the squash to be a puree and the beans to be half cooked). Add the rice and milk (and salt) and boil until the rice is done. I usually make this in a pressure cooker so I don't know how much milk you need for "normal" cooking but you want this to be a veeeeery creamy risotto or rather a little thick soup. Add some parmesan cheese and a bit of butter.
I could have written this on the fall soup thread... this is one of my fall favourites!

BTW: I was having a similar conversation about leeks and Leeches with my mum a couple of days ago...

Alice -- thanks for the recipes - I got hungry just reading them. One question -- here in California the standard rice is long-grain rice. Am I correct that your recipes are based on the use of carnaroli or arborio rice?

Jim -- thanks for the reference to leeks instead of leeches...I was wondering what Alice really meant -- as a leech is not a vegetable.

Jim, thanks, I fixed it.

Giulia: sometimes my granny add some beans to the zucca recipe, and we do make riis e lacc (rice and milk), but we make it a sweetish (not really sweet) soup, with a pinch of sugar and no cheese.

Motherjudy: long grain rices here have just appeared in the market and are quite uncommon, in any case they are not used in Italian cooking. Round grain rices have been producing the best results here in italy, while long-grains do not grow well here. The result is that since the XVII or XVIII century northern Italy has feed its poors on rice. Thus the soups.
There are many varieties of round grain rices that have been selected in italy, both for the italian climate and to better fit with our way to cook rice. In these recipes I would not use Arborio, but I would rather use a semifino rice like Padano, Vialone nano or Italico, or a fine rice, like Ribe or Sant'Andrea.

Alice,

You outdo yourself each time!! These are great and thanks for sharing them.

Question though.. what size glass? I know with any rice liquid is important and flexible depending on humidity and all that other stuff but the base measure should be close. My Nana used her hand as a measure so those were tough to follow as my hands are HUGE.

Thanks again Alice!!

Doug

Uhm... A standard water glass, neither too small nor too big... I mean, a glass like this, or this, or this, or this, or this... We are not sticklesrs for measures. Our recipes use a lot of fluctuant measures like "a handful", "a pinch", "a glass" etc.

Alice,

Got it!!

Grazie! I printed them all out last night. What I do is highlight the area and hit CTRL C to cut it and then open a blank Word document and hit CTRL V to paste in on the page. From there it goes into the recipe binder!

Ecco!

Doug