Risotto
Italian rice dish
Risotto ( riz-OT-oh, Italian: [riˈzɔtto, -ˈsɔt-]; from riso, 'rice') is an Italian rice dish cooked with broth until it reaches a creamy consistency. The broth can be derived from meat, fish or vegetables. Many types of risotto contain butter, onion, white wine, and Parmesan cheese. It is one of the most common ways of cooking rice in Italy. Saffron was originally used for flavour and its signature yellow colour.
Risotto in Italy is usually a first course (primo), served before a second course (secondo), but risotto alla milanese is often served with ossobuco alla milanese as a one-course meal.
History
Rice has been grown in southern Italy for centuries, and gradually made its way to northern Italy, where the marshes of the Po Valley were suitable for rice cultivation. According to a legend, the Netherlandish glass painter Valerio Profondavalle of the Veneranda Fabbrica del Duomo di Milano, who used to use saffron as a pigment, added it to a rice dish at a wedding feast. Risotto is believed to have originated in what is now known as Lombardy. The first recipe identifiable as risotto dates from 1809.
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This entry incorporates text from “Risotto” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.