A moulded dome of rice baked around braised pigeon, unmoulded at the table like a savoury cake. Parma's grandest old-fashioned dish, revived by the city's younger kitchens.
Bomba di riso descends from the baroque timballi of the Farnese and Bourbon courts, filtered through the farm kitchens of the Parma Apennines where pigeon was the festive meat. The rice shell is enriched with butter and Parmigiano, the filling is pigeon braised with its livers, and the whole is baked in a buttered mould until it holds its shape. Nearly extinct by the 1990s, it has returned on revival menus, Brisla's Bib Gourmand kitchen among them.
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