Boil 1 cup of rice in salted water until soft; drain. Then grate Parmesan cheese and cover the rice with cheese. Let steam in the oven a few minutes; then pour over some highly seasoned tomato-sauce, and serve hot with fried veal chops.
January 31 — No. 31
Italian
This is a rice-and-cheese gratin rather than a risotto in the modern sense, and it works best if you treat it that way. The one thing that matters is not overcooking the rice at the boiling stage, since it goes back into the oven.
- Not a risotto techniqueThere is no broth, no stirring, and no gradual absorption here. Boiled, drained rice covered with cheese and baked is closer to a Neapolitan baked rice than to the northern Italian dish; do not try to correct it into a stirred risotto or the instructions stop making sense.
- Which riceThe original just says rice. A medium-grain such as Arborio or Carnaroli gives the creamy result the dish is reaching for, but it will turn to paste if boiled soft and then baked. Boil to just tender, drain well, and keep the oven time short.
- "Soft" means al dente hereDon't overcook at the boiling stage -- The original says to boil the rice until soft, but since it goes back into the oven it is worth stopping short of that: roughly 12-14 minutes in well-salted water, tasting from 10. The rice continues to soften while it steams under the cheese.
- Oven and timeThe original gives no temperature, only 'a few minutes' in the oven. A hot oven, around 400F, for 5-8 minutes is enough for the Parmesan to melt and set without drying the rice out. Cover loosely with foil if it starts to crust.
- Parmesan quantityNone is given. Around 3 oz (about 1 cup finely grated) for 1 cup of raw rice covers it generously. Use real Parmigiano-Reggiano or Grana Padano; pre-grated powdered cheese will not melt into the rice.
- "Highly seasoned tomato-sauce"The book gives no detail; a cooked and seasoned sauce rather than a raw puree is the likely intention. Reduce it until it coats a spoon, or it will flood the rice.
- The veal chopsFried veal chops are optional to the dish itself. If you serve them, cook to 145F and rest 3 minutes; thin cutlets need only a few minutes a side.
- Yield1 cup of raw rice serves three as a side dish, two as a main course with the chops.
Books like this one, arranged as a dish a day with a nationality attached to each, were one of the formats in circulation in America around the turn of the twentieth century, and the labels are best read as gestures rather than geography. The dish the page titles "Rissotto" is a good illustration: true risotto depends on stirring rice in stock so the starch emulsifies, a method often said to have reached English-language cookbooks only gradually. What the compiler describes -- boiled rice, grated Parmesan, a spell in the oven, tomato sauce poured over -- suggests the sort of simplification by which Italian food reached American kitchens, with cheese and tomato standing in for the whole cuisine.