Introduction:
I wanted to make one more “carb” dish for the second course of the feast, and chose to make this one vegan so diners following that diet would have something that felt like a full meal rather than just a few dishes.
Scappi Book 3, Recipe 132
To prepare a thick rice soup with almond milk or oil:
Get rice from Lombardy or Salerno, hull it and wash it in warm water. So that it will stay whiter and cook more quickly, soak it for an hour in warm water. Take it out and let it dry in the sun or in the heat of the fire far from the flame so it will not darken. Set it on the fire in an earthenware or copper pot in enough water to cover it. When it has absorbed the water, put in almond milk and sugar and finish off cooking it so that it ends up firm. When it is done, serve it with sugar and cinnamon over it .
You can also serve it sometimes as yellowdish, having strained it with more sugar and ground cinnamon and saffron, and cooking it again with a little rosewater and malmsey. If you want it with oil, though, all you need to do is put it into the pot with oil, water, salt and saffron, and at the end add in a few fine herbs or sauteed spring onions. No matter how it is done, that thick soup should be served hot.
Discussion
- For the same reasons I didn’t use the cinnamon in the pork dish, and because I didn’t want to deal with the potential cross-contamination issues with almonds, I chose to make the third variation.
- Using the green onion tops as garnish is perhaps a step from period practice, but is very pretty.
- A similar saffron risotto dish is still a speciality in Milan today, though the instruction to soak and drain the rice means this dish will not be as creamy as modern risotto. Perhaps the starch wasn’t considered necessary if one was adding almond milk.
A Dish of Rice
4
servingsIngredients
1 cup rice (Arborio or Carnaroli, or other short grain Italian rice)
1 tbs olive oil
5-6 threads of saffron, or more to taste
Salt
Handful of parsley
2 tsp chopped dill
3-4 green onions
Directions
- Soak rice for 1 hour in warm water, drain, dry with towels and refrigerate.
- Slice the onions, separating the whites from the greens. Chop parsley and dill.
- Activate saffron by mixing with a small quantity of hot water.
- Sauté the whites of the onions in generous olive oil.
- Add rice, toast lightly.
- Add 2x volume of water as rice, bring to boil. Add activated saffron and salt. Should cook in 10 min or less – remove from heat when tender and creamy. Don’t forget to stir, add more liquid if it gets too stodgy.
- When tender, remove from heat, stir in parsley/dill/most of onion greens.
- Garnish with remaining onion greens to serve.
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