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Rice Milanese
Pour one teacupful of milk into a saucepan on the fire, when it boils add one teacupful of well-washed rice, and a small quantity of finely-chopped onion. Cover the pan and boil slowly for about twenty minutes, by which time the rice should be soft and dry. Add a little saffron worked up with one ounce of butter, one ounce of grated cheese, and pepper and salt to taste. Stir well, and let the mixture remain on the side of the fire for ten minutes, turn it out onto a dish, and serve.
A stripped-down risotto Milanese, cooked in milk rather than stock and without the constant stirring. A few of Oscar's proportions need attention before it will work on a modern hob.
- The liquid is shortOne teacupful of milk to one teacupful of rice will not hydrate the grain; most rices want two to three times their volume in liquid. Expect to add more hot milk or water in stages, or the centres will stay chalky at twenty minutes.
- Milk scorchesThis is the hinge. Milk left on direct heat under a lid will catch on the pan bottom and taint the whole dish. Use a heavy pan, the lowest possible flame, and check it more often than the recipe implies.
- A teacupfulTurn-of-the-century American books are inconsistent about the teacup; it is often reckoned at around six fluid ounces, three-quarters of a modern cup, rather than the eight-ounce measuring cup, but the size was never fixed.
- An ounceOne ounce of butter is two tablespoons; one ounce of grated cheese is roughly a quarter cup loosely packed. Oscar does not name the cheese; Parmesan is the likely intention.
- Saffron"A little" means a generous pinch, perhaps twenty threads, crushed and worked into the soft butter as directed so the colour disperses evenly. Steeping the threads in a spoonful of hot milk first gives a more even yellow than butter alone.
- The riceOscar does not specify, but a short or medium grain such as Arborio or Carnaroli gives the creaminess the dish is after. Washing it, as instructed, strips surface starch and works against that; skip the rinse if you want a risotto texture.
- "On the side of the fire"A coal range had cooler zones at its edges. The equivalent is the lowest burner setting, or simply the covered pan off the heat, for the ten-minute rest.
- YieldServes two as a side dish, or one as a plate on its own.
Risotto alla Milanese — rice stained gold with saffron and finished with butter and grated cheese — is the signature rice dish of Lombardy, and a legend repeated in Milan traces its colour to a glassworker tinting saffron into the pigments for the Duomo's windows, though that story is folklore rather than record. What Oscar Tschirky sets down here is the dish as it travelled: no broth, no toasting of the grain, no gradual ladling, just rice boiled soft in milk and enriched at the end. The Waldorf's kitchen under Tschirky's eye was French in method and international in menu. The dish takes its name from Milan, and the saffron was expensive then as now.