So I LOVE rice pudding. I’m not so keen on the tinned stuff, but will eat it if put in front of me. Annie suggested I should make one, as we had all the ingredients, and I would realise how easy it was to make, as I had somehow missed out on making a mess ruining ‘helping’ my Daddy Kev’s favourite pudding, growing up. Now that I’ve made it myself, I realise how un-exciting it is to make, so I can understand why my Dad didnt bother getting me involved – I probably would have tried jazzing the process up with the addition of a hand held blender and food colouring or something….. What?! Food should be FUN!
I based MY OWN VERSION (check me out!) on a recipe Annie had saved for me from a Waitrose Food Illustarated magazine, written by, errrrm…. I don’t know her name. It got ripped off. Sorry. But what I can gather from the photo and text, she is a lovely lady who once had a neighbour called Joanna, who made a bad-ass rice pudding with vanilla and nutmeg. But I decided to jazz mine up a little (omitting the vanilla and nutmeg, and using cardamon and bay leaves instead), and it goes a little something like this… (I’m also available for weddings and bar mitvahs)
P’s RICE PUDDING
According to the lovely lady mentioned above, this recipe serves 6. I say she is WRONG. If you like rice pudding, this will serve 4. Or if you’re a lover, like me, it will serve one greedy monster over 3 sittings.
20g unsalted butter
130g pudding rice (yes, I know it doesn’t look a lot, but just trust me on this one)
55g caster sugar
1.1 litres semi skimmed milk (the lovely lady said whole milk, but I used semi and it worked just fine)
3 Cardamon pods
2 Bay leaves
Palm sugar for grating (or muscavado/light brown sugar for sprinkling) CLICK ME FOR MORE INFO
1. Preheat your oven to 150 celsius. Then, using a scrap of the paper the butter is wrapped in, or a bit of greaseproof paper, grease a 2 litre ovenproof dish with a little chunk of the butter (about a quarter of it), this way your fingers wont get too mucky. Oh, and if you don’t know how big your dish is, see how much water it holds – if it fits 2 litres to the brim, PERFECT!
2. Chuck the rice and sugar into the dish and give it a swirl about. Then add the milk. At this point, you might wonder if you’ve measured this out correctly as it looks far too much milk, and far too little rice, but honestly, it IS right – DONT PANIC MR MANNERING! This next bit seems a bit odd too, but again, just go with the flow – pinch or cut off little bits of the remaining butter, and drop them all about the dish. They will float around and it will all look a bit wrong, but have faith my friend.
3. Next, split open the cardamon pods (I just used my nails, but gently bash them with a rolling pin if need be), pick out the seeds, and grind those up with a pestle and mortar. If you don’t have a pestle and mortar, pop them into a mug and use the end of the rolling pin to crush them. Sprinkle the ground seeds over the milk, and drop the bay leaves on top too – they should float.
4. Now carefully place your dish in the oven – if you had a heavy time last night, and have the shakes, I would advise you get someone else to do this, as it can slosh about, and we wouldn’t want to waste any of this, would we?! Leave it in there for about 1hr 50mins, until it is browned on top, and the rice is plump and squidgey. Remove from the oven, and serve with the palm sugar (or alternative) on hand to grate over the top to your liking. Then just sit, relax, and chow down.
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