Rice Pudding
Another food from my childhood that I have been craving since starting my diet is rice pudding. A dessert I remember making myself when we lived on Alford Forest Road in Ashburton.
While I remember how my brothers and I made it as children, I am a little ambivalent to cook it that way as I think it involved sweetening with large lumps of ice cream. Instead I decided to search the internet for a promising looking recipe and ended up with this one, which curiously uses an egg, something we definitely didn't do when making it. However I cut the recipe back to milk, rice, egg and raisins and sweetened it with honey, which I find I need to use very little of.
Dietwise there are a number of reasons I can justify this. It uses less rice than I used to cook with my stir fries. It uses a lot of milk which bumps my calcium intake over the 100% RDA level. And it also usually bumps my calories up over the 2000 calorie point, something which is definitely good as it will prevent me from losing weight as fast as I am. Something my other wanton efforts at baking are no doubt more than making up for anyway.
Well, your blog is too interesting and it sucked me in all the way to here from the top post. I need to stop and do something useful ;). However, as rice pudding is one of my favorite foods, here from memory is our (at least) three generations old family recipe (as compensation for your fine posts). It comes from Sicily:
ReplyDeletecooking time: about 2 hrs 30 mins
Gather your ingredients, one large pot (like you would use for boiling pasta), and two pans about 9 x 13 inches (like for casseroles or lasagna), buttered.
ingredients:
2 cups raw arborio rice
1 gallon whole milk
1/2 lb. of butter
2 cups white sugar
6 eggs
2 tablespoons vanilla
cinnamon for dusting
directions:
Heat milk slowly in a large, heavy pot. While the milk heats up, cook the rice in about 3 1/2 cups of water, about 15-20 minutes.
Meanwhile, separate eggs and reserve whites in a cool place. Beat yolks briefly. Cube butter into small pieces and add to milk. When butter is melted, add a little of the hot milk to the yolks, stir, then add the yolks to the pot. Add the sugar to the milk in a slow stream while stirring. Add the vanilla, then rice, stirring well.
Cook the pudding on low heat for about an hour, avoiding burning. The mixture will thicken slowly. You may increase the heat a little if you're on hand to stir, and in this way you can reduce the cooking time.
You will know the pudding is done with this stage when the mixture is thick, nearly supporting a wooden spoon left to stand on its own. The rice will suddenly appear in the mixture as a homogenous mass, where before the pudding seemed very thin and milk-like. You may cook the pudding less or more, as you prefer thinner or thicker pudding.
Take the pot off the heat and divide the pudding equally between the two pans. Let the pudding rest for a moment and then stir to avoid a skin forming.
Turn on your oven to broil. You may also use a flametorch if you have one available. If so, ready your torch.
Meanwhile, beat the eggs whites to soft peaks and doubled in volume. Fold the whites equally into each pan; you need not mix it in totally. Dust each pan with cinnamon as you like, then broil each pan, preferably under direct flame, for about five minutes. Watch it carefully to avoid burning.
Eat hot or cold as you like. Adding raisins is optional (I don't).
best, George
Cheers. I need to cooking rice pudding again sometime. I used to cook it every day when I lived in Iceland - probably the reason my wait stayed the same for the last year I was there :) But I haven't cooked it since I moved to the USA.
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