Secrets of the Italian rice used in risotto – and the rice paddies of Little China where it grows
- ‘Our rice is the healthiest,’ explains a grower in northern Italy whose farm has been cultivating the grain for 600 years. His is Carnaroli, the ‘king of rice’
- The variety, and another grown in the rice paddies of Piedmont and Lombardy, Arborio, are ideal for risotto, a dish in which the pearly grains absorb flavour
There is a stretch of land reaching across the northern Italian regions of Piedmont and Lombardy that has become known throughout the country as “Little China”. Rice paddies that seasonally become a watery checkerboard spread across fertile meadows once covered in marshlands.
Here, old farms called cascine produce the country’s famed rice varieties. Italy’s rice triangle, where 92 per cent of the rice production is concentrated, lies between the cities of Novara, Vercelli and Pavia, in the hills west of Milan.
An average of a million tonnes of rice is grown each year in Italy, making it Europe’s largest rice producer. About half this yield, from 200 different varieties of rice, is exported. By contrast, China produces far more rice, roughly 148 million tonnes annually, but Italian rice has unique qualities and its indigenous grains are exported worldwide, including to Asia.
The Carnaroli and Arborio varieties are ideal for making risotto: absorbent rice cooked with various other ingredients such as stew, beef broth, mushrooms, Gorgonzola blue cheese, oxtail, saffron – to make “yellow risotto” – and Barolo or Barbera red wine.
With large and pearly grains, Carnaroli is considered the “king of rice” by Italians.
