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Pretty Excellent Unoriginal Rice Pudding
Jul. 15th, 2009 05:28 pmI really felt like rice pudding today so I went on an Internets Quest to try to find one that didn't involve baking or cooling (because both of these processes take yonks) or cooking in ramekins (ridiculous, fiddly.) I didn't find one quite the way I wanted it so I synthesised a couple of recipes from Epicurious. It is pretty damn tasty.
Ingredients
3/4 C rice
1 1/2 C water
pinch salt
3 C milk
1 C cream
1/2 C sugar
4 strips orange zest
vanilla bean
cinnamon quill
Note: none of these are absolute.
Rice: I used arborio because we had it, but you could definitely use long-grain, other short-grain, medium-grain - one of these recipes originally recommended basmati rice which I would NEVER have thought to use for rice pudding.
Milk: I used whole milk and a cup of cream but probably you could switch to 4 cups milk and drop the cream, maybe even use a lower-fat milk - it is very, very rich.
Sugar can be upped or downed according to taste.
Orange zest (I used the zest of about half an orange, peeled with a potato peeler) and cinnamon quill can be dropped entirely; lemon zest can be substituted for orange zest; a teaspoon or so of cinnamon can be substituted for the quill.
Don't drop the vanilla altogether, but you can substitute it for vanilla essence. Vanilla pods are pretty dear (however you can get them on trademe for around $1/ea.)
Method:
1. Bring rice, water, and salt to boil in a large flat-bottomed pan, then cover and reduce heat to low. Let simmer until the water is absorbed (I wouldn't fuss too much about the water being Utterly and Completely absorbed because your rice will burn.)
2. Slice the vanilla pod lengthways and scrape out seeds. Zest your orange.
3. When water is absorbed add milk, cream, sugar, vanilla pod and seeds, cinnamon, and zest, and stir thoroughly.
4. Over a medium heat, cook uncovered stirring every five or ten minutes (every ten at the beginning, every five towards the end) until the pudding becomes thick and creamy - about 40 minutes depending on the texture you're looking for.
5. Remove orange zest, cinnamon stick, and vanilla bean. Serve warm, or press gladwrap to the pudding (to prevent a skin forming) and refrigerate until ready to serve (it will probably set, like a jelly, if you do this, so think about that if you want it to look nice when you serve it. But realistically, this is rice pudding, one does not make it for its good looks.)
Discard the orange zest. Rinse the vanilla pod - you can grind it up and mix it with sugar, or just store it in your sugar bowl - don't discard it after just one use, although since boiling in milk for an hour is a fairly intensive use don't expect to be able to use it the same way again. You can do the same with the cinnamon quill - use it to stir your tea or coffee, etc.
(Socially) Good Things about this recipe: it is vegetarian. It is wheat-free, gluten-free, soy-free, and egg-free. It is NOT vegan (I'm curious as to how rice pudding made with coconut milk would turn out, although I suspect it'd have to be half coconut milk half soy milk; you could probably do it with soy milk if you have a vegan friend you want to feed but I wouldn't swear to it) and it is not sugar-free. (I have a friend who is, among other things, sugar intolerant; I was just congratulating myself on having made a recipe she could eat when I remembered that. :-/) However, there are plenty of sugar substitutes out there for diabetics etc.
Oh, a me-update: I feel a lot better, still tired but just about over the jetlag - had class from 9 to 5 yesterday so I really had to be awake and alert the whole day, and then managed to keep awake till 10 o'clock and woke up about quarter to seven, so I think I'm more or less sorted. I'm also mostly over the dread illness and much warmer - my uncle brought me round a wee heater so I've been heating my room and basically never leaving it, which is very, you know, cozy. And restful.
Ingredients
3/4 C rice
1 1/2 C water
pinch salt
3 C milk
1 C cream
1/2 C sugar
4 strips orange zest
vanilla bean
cinnamon quill
Note: none of these are absolute.
Rice: I used arborio because we had it, but you could definitely use long-grain, other short-grain, medium-grain - one of these recipes originally recommended basmati rice which I would NEVER have thought to use for rice pudding.
Milk: I used whole milk and a cup of cream but probably you could switch to 4 cups milk and drop the cream, maybe even use a lower-fat milk - it is very, very rich.
Sugar can be upped or downed according to taste.
Orange zest (I used the zest of about half an orange, peeled with a potato peeler) and cinnamon quill can be dropped entirely; lemon zest can be substituted for orange zest; a teaspoon or so of cinnamon can be substituted for the quill.
Don't drop the vanilla altogether, but you can substitute it for vanilla essence. Vanilla pods are pretty dear (however you can get them on trademe for around $1/ea.)
Method:
1. Bring rice, water, and salt to boil in a large flat-bottomed pan, then cover and reduce heat to low. Let simmer until the water is absorbed (I wouldn't fuss too much about the water being Utterly and Completely absorbed because your rice will burn.)
2. Slice the vanilla pod lengthways and scrape out seeds. Zest your orange.
3. When water is absorbed add milk, cream, sugar, vanilla pod and seeds, cinnamon, and zest, and stir thoroughly.
4. Over a medium heat, cook uncovered stirring every five or ten minutes (every ten at the beginning, every five towards the end) until the pudding becomes thick and creamy - about 40 minutes depending on the texture you're looking for.
5. Remove orange zest, cinnamon stick, and vanilla bean. Serve warm, or press gladwrap to the pudding (to prevent a skin forming) and refrigerate until ready to serve (it will probably set, like a jelly, if you do this, so think about that if you want it to look nice when you serve it. But realistically, this is rice pudding, one does not make it for its good looks.)
Discard the orange zest. Rinse the vanilla pod - you can grind it up and mix it with sugar, or just store it in your sugar bowl - don't discard it after just one use, although since boiling in milk for an hour is a fairly intensive use don't expect to be able to use it the same way again. You can do the same with the cinnamon quill - use it to stir your tea or coffee, etc.
(Socially) Good Things about this recipe: it is vegetarian. It is wheat-free, gluten-free, soy-free, and egg-free. It is NOT vegan (I'm curious as to how rice pudding made with coconut milk would turn out, although I suspect it'd have to be half coconut milk half soy milk; you could probably do it with soy milk if you have a vegan friend you want to feed but I wouldn't swear to it) and it is not sugar-free. (I have a friend who is, among other things, sugar intolerant; I was just congratulating myself on having made a recipe she could eat when I remembered that. :-/) However, there are plenty of sugar substitutes out there for diabetics etc.
Oh, a me-update: I feel a lot better, still tired but just about over the jetlag - had class from 9 to 5 yesterday so I really had to be awake and alert the whole day, and then managed to keep awake till 10 o'clock and woke up about quarter to seven, so I think I'm more or less sorted. I'm also mostly over the dread illness and much warmer - my uncle brought me round a wee heater so I've been heating my room and basically never leaving it, which is very, you know, cozy. And restful.
