A dish of many names, Rispor from canton Uri is risotto, heavy on the leeks, with a big pile of grated Sbrinz cheese stirred in at the end. Allium-loving Sam makes sure that in our house it’s always topped with a pile of caramelized onions.

Swiss cuisine has undoubtedly been influenced by its neighbour to the south. It was Italian workers who traveled North to help build the Gotthard tunnel in the 1870s, the start of a wave of immigration that lasted into the middle of last century.

Although the notion that pasta was brought to Switzerland from Gotthard tunnel workers has been debunked (there were already factories producing pasta in Switzerland earlier in the century), this wave surely helped proliferate Italian staples, which seeped into the local cuisine—think Älplermagronen. Alpine herders brought dried pasta, a physically light, but energy-dense foodstuff with them into the mountains then cooked it in fresh milk from their grazing cows and stirred in their alp cheeses.

Canton Uri, where the tunnel ends in the North, also felt that Italian influence in dishes like Rispor.

Most of the Swiss recipes involve an easier cooking method (add the liquid and let simmer) than typical Italian risotto (slowly ladle in hot broth), but the end result is a creamy, delicious meal that dates from the 1700s and was often served during Lent.

Alternative names for this dish abound, Ryys und Boor, Rys und Pohr, with the Boor/Pohr also borrowed from the South, porrum being Latin for leek (the root of the high German word, Porree).

Most of the old cookbooks that I consulted used the name Rispor, like Peter Bührer’s 1986 Schweizer Spezialitäten, the classic ramble Kulinarische Streifzüge durch die Schweiz, and Kochkunst und Traditionen in der Schweiz which all had varying amounts of leeks (from 300 g to 1 kg) and cheese, against the standard 300 g risotto rice.

The delightful Heddi at Cuisine Helvetica has a great recipe in English with potatoes and mushrooms (with cup measurements, my North American friends!), and the lovely Silvie of Citronelle and Cardamome has a recipe in French as part of her Swiss Food Discovery series. For a German version, I like the one at Lamiacucina.

knob of butter

400-500 g leeks, washed and sliced

300 g arborio or other risotto rice

100 ml white wine

1 litre broth

150 g Sbrinz cheese, grated

Topping

knob of butter

4 large onions, sliced in rings

Start with the topping:

In a small pan, melt the butter over medium heat. Add the onions and cook over medium low heat until they are amber coloured and sticky, adding a tiny splash of water if they start to stick to the bottom of the pan. This will take around 30 minutes.

In the meantime, make the rice:

In a large pot, melt the butter over medium high heat until spluttering.

Add the leeks and cook until slightly softened, about 5 minutes.

Add the rice and stir briefly, then add the white wine.

Pour in the broth and bring to a boil. Lower the heat and let the mixture simmer, stirring occasionally, for about 25 to 30 minutes, or until the rice is soft and creamy.

Once the rice is cooked, stir in the cheese.

Top with the onions.

• If you don't have Sbrinz, you can use another hard cheese like Parmesan or Gran Padano.

• If you don’t fancy the onions, top with an additional grating of cheese.

• Serves 4.