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Rice, Swiss
Finely chop a medium, sound onion and two ounces raw beef marrow, place both in saucepan with a tablespoon butter and gently fry for five minutes, or until onions attain a nice golden colour, stirring almost continually meanwhile with a wooden spoon. Add eight ounces raw Italian rice, continually stirring on fire for six minutes or until a good golden colour, then pour in little by little one light quart of hot broth, mixing while adding it. Season with a teaspoon salt, two saltspoons pepper and a saltspoon diluted and strained Spanish saffron. Mix well, cover pan and cook for thirty-five minutes, being careful to frequently stir at bottom. Add two ounces grated Swiss cheese, mix well until cheese is thoroughly amalgamated, dress on hot deep dish and serve.
This is a risotto in all but name, written for a cook who expects to stand over the pan. Two things need adjusting: the rice variety and the cooking time.
- Cut the timeThirty-five minutes will reduce arborio or carnaroli to paste. Modern short-grain risotto rice is done in 17-20 minutes from the first ladle of broth; taste from 16 minutes and stop when the grain is firm at the centre.
- Saltspoon and light quartA saltspoon is generally taken as about a quarter teaspoon, so the seasoning here works out to roughly 1 tsp salt, 1/2 tsp pepper, 1/4 tsp saffron liquid. A "light quart" appears to mean a scant quart, about 3 3/4 cups; expect to need a little more or less depending on the rice.
- Italian riceIn this period the phrase meant a starchy short-grain rice from the Po valley. The modern named varieties -- arborio, carnaroli, vialone nano -- are all later selections, but any of them works here. Long-grain rice will not give the creamy binding the method depends on.
- Beef marrowTwo ounces of raw marrow, scooped from split beef leg bones, is the traditional fat of Milanese risotto and gives a distinct savoury weight. Ask a butcher for marrow bones; if you skip it, increase the butter to about 3 tablespoons, though the flavour will be lighter.
- Diluted saffron"Diluted and strained" means the threads are steeped in a little hot broth and the liquid used, not the threads themselves. Steeping for 10-15 minutes extracts far more colour than adding dry threads to the pan.
- Swiss cheeseGruyère or Emmental, grated fine, as the book intends by "Swiss." Stir it in off the heat so it melts into the starch rather than stringing; Parmesan is the Milanese norm if you want the more familiar version.
- Toasting the riceThe six minutes of stirring before any liquid goes in matters. Toasting firms the outside of the grain so its starch is released more gradually, which helps the dish finish creamy rather than gluey.
- YieldEight ounces of rice serves three as a first course, or two as a main. Serve immediately — risotto stiffens within minutes of leaving the pan.
Despite the title, this is essentially risotto alla milanese: onion and beef marrow softened in butter, rice toasted, saffron, and hot broth added by degrees. The Swiss claim rests on the cheese, and it is a plausible one the rice-growing Piedmontese and Lombard plains sit against the Alpine cheese country, and Ticino, Italian-speaking Switzerland, cooks saffron risotto as a regional specialty of its own. Books of this kind, assembled for American hotel and household kitchens, sorted dishes by nationality more loosely than we would now, and a cheese or a garnish was often enough to fix a label. The saffron itself is the older marker: it was expensive enough that a saffron rice signalled a prosperous table, and the "diluted and strained" instruction simply reflects how threads are used steeped, then strained.