Risotto alla Pilota

Forget what you think you know about risotto. The stirring, the ladling, the constant attention: that is Milan. This is Mantua, and in Mantua, they do things differently. The piloti, the men who worked the rice mills along the Po Valley, needed food that could cook while they worked. They could not stand at a stove stirring. So they developed a method where the rice absorbs measured liquid in a covered pot, undisturbed, while they continued their labor.

The result is drier, the grains more distinct, the texture closer to a pilaf than to the creamy wave of risotto all'onda. Americans hear 'risotto' and imagine one thing. This proves, once again, that Italian cooking does not exist as a single cuisine. There are regional traditions, and they are as different from each other as France is from Spain.

The sausage here is not cooked with the rice. It is browned separately, crumbled fine, and folded in at the end with butter and cheese. The meat flavors the finished dish without releasing its fat into the cooking liquid. This distinction matters. When someone tells you all risotto is the same, you may now correct them.