Cascina Veneria Rice

I love risotto.  I don’t make it often because it’s a lot of work, but I really, really love it.  Both sophisticated and comforting, it’s one of the most adaptable and satisfying of cold-weather foods, either alongside a main meat dish or as the centerpiece of a meal.  Here’s what I didn’t know: that there are at least a half dozen different types of rice grown to make risotto.  Arborio is the most well known, but there are other varieties that are suited to the type of dish you’re making, whether it features vegetables or meat, and so forth.

One of my favorites is Cascina Veneria’s Vialone Nano.  I discovered this incredible rice on a buying trip to the Piedmont last year.  It’s so good, we now import it directly from Italy several times a year. It’s got small, pearlescent grains which yields a creamy, soft-textured risotto, and can also be used for rice salads.  

Size: 1.1 lbs.

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Rice...there’s more to it than you think.

So what makes one rice superior to another in quality?  For one thing, it must be carefully milled to separate out the indigestible parts of the grain, as well as dirt and debris, damaged and broken grains.  By law up to 5% by weight can be broken grains, and the rice still be sold as premium quality, but due to lack of controls and oversight , the actual amount may reach 7-8% in many commercial varieties.

Cascina Veneria imposes an upper tolerance of 3% of broken grains for its product.  Also, due to special secondary milling techniques, every grain is certain to be perfectly cleaned, hulled and uniform (an optical separator removes individual grains of discolored and damaged rice to be sold for animal feed, along with the husks, bran and other discarded parts of the grain).  After milling, the rice is held in silos where it is treated with carbon dioxide for 148 hours to insure that no pests will infest the finished product.  It is then bagged in brown paper sacks for sale.  No plastic is used in the packaging as it could affect the aroma of the rice.

What do all of these controls offer to the end consumer?  Consistency.  The higher the percentage of broken and damaged grains, the more difficult it is to make a good risotto, as the rice pieces will all cook at different rates.  It’s a real bummer to spend 45 minutes stirring a pot of risotto, only to end up with a sludgy mass flecked with hard crunchy bits—if this has ever happened to you, you probably started out with inferior rice and lots of broken grains.  The ideal risotto is thick and creamy, yet each grain remains intact.

Cascina Veneria grows Carnaroli, by far the most popular and well-known rice after Arborio, which is particularly suited to risotto-making due to its high starch content, high absorption capacity and its resistance to overcooking.  The grains are relatively large and oblong, and hold their shape well.  Baldo is a variety of Arborio with large, translucent grains and a lot of starch, and it is also ideal as a risotto rice.  Vialone Nano has small, pearlescent grains which yield a creamy, soft-textured risotto, and can also be used for rice salads.  Try them all, and see which you love the best!