Hi everybody, I'm Carlo Cracco.
I'm in my restaurant in Galleria Vittorio Emanuele in Milan.
Today I'm making a classic of the Milanese cuisine: risotto with saffron. Starting from the rice, a very accurate selection. This helps to obtain a
more homogeneous cooking, an almost perfect dish. Then, we have a
saffron in pistils, chopped shallot, We're using Parmigiano Reggiano, butter, some extra virgin olive oil,
marrow, salt, pepper. Good, let's start
with our recipe. We're adding some chopped shallot, we're also adding a small knob
of butter and let it melt. We melt our mixture. We're adding some rice. Let's add the saffron. The grain becomes translucent,
so we're starting to add water, starting the cooking with our broth. We can add a beef broth if we want to make it in the traditional way and in,
let's say, a richer way. If we want to make it lighter, we can also use some water. A pinch
of salt, and we're starting the cooking. I think rice is truly a kind of symbol
for the territory in Milan, because of its history, its proximity and
all it represents. It's true that it's difficult to connect a territory
to Milan as there could be lots of territories out of
the residential areas, but Milan has its territoriality, and the rice
is surely the main part of this territory. Well, our rice is cooked.
Not cooked, it's "al dente"! We're are moving it away
from the heat and let it stand. We're letting it stand for one minute, then we're thickening it.
Thickening means adding fat, it means adding some Parmesan,
some more butter at wish, but in this case we could also avoid it,
and we're adding a spoonful of extra virgin olive oil instead, that is gonna
give some freshness and some fragrance, as well. A pinch of pepper
and, to finish, the marrow. The marrow was cooked on a plate.
We're adding the oil. We're adding some cheese, and we're stirring our rice. We're adding a pinch of white pepper.
The white one, as if we use the black one it stays visible. It was called risotto, back
then. What is the difference? None. It's just a name. Once risotto used to be
very rich, almost excessive. Today risotto is a little bit lighter,
a bit more, let's say, it got quite refined. That's the reason why we call it rice.
We're pouring our risotto. We finished the recipe.
Another good thing about this rice, this Riserva San Massimo
rice, is that every leftover is never thrown away. We're keeping it
to make riso al salto (sautéed). This is one of my favorites, as
the preparation is extremely poor, extremely recycled, where all the
difference is made by a good rice. All is left for me is waiting for you
in Milan, in Galleria. Buon appetito! Enjoy!
