My mother Angeline made great rice pudding.
Rice pudding is a tasty, nutritious dessert, and easy to make.
This is Angie’s recipe which comes out perfect every time.
About the rice
Most recipes will tell you to use a short or medium grain rice like Aborio. Short grain rice contain more starch and make the pudding thicken. You can use the short grain rice for this recipe but adjust the milk to suit.
Angie and most Greek restaurants always used Carolina rice, a long grain rice, for rice pudding. It will give you a nice creamy pudding.
You do not want to use a converted rice like Uncle Ben’s or any pre-cooked rice, or you will end up with rice in milk.
In Greece they mostly use rice glacé.
Ingredients
- 1/2 cup Carolina rice
- 1 cup sugar
- 1 qt milk
- 2 tsp vanilla
- 2 eggs
- 1/2 tsp salt
Cook rice, sugar,and salt in milk until tender, approx. 30 to 45 minutes depending on the rice. Older rice needs more time. The rice has to cooked until it is tender and the pudding thickened. If it gets too thick add a little more milk.
In a separate bowl beat eggs and temper them. To temper eggs, whisk them with a ladle or two of hot liquid. Once the eggs are slightly warmed, continue to add hot liquid in increasing amounts until the egg mixture is hot.
Using a whisk add the tempered eggs to the pudding and cook only until you see a bubble or two come up. If you cook it too much after you add the eggs the eggs might curdle.
Stir the vanilla after off heat.
Pour the completed pudding into a bowl or individual pudding cups and sprinkle ground cinnamon on top. Let cool at room temperature slightly then refrigerate.
This recipe is scaleable.
When I make it I also add a pinch of white pepper or cayenne pepper and either lemon or orange rind. Finely grate the rind or just put the whole rind into the rice/milk mixture and remove it when the pudding is finished. You can also add currents or raisins while the rice is cooking. Instead of plain cinnamon on top you can use cinnamon sugar.
When the pudding is off the fire, stir in one tablespoon of butter for added richness.
If you want to make it Indian style add 1 teaspoon of ground cardamon to the rice and milk and instead of cinnamon sprinkle chopped unsalted pistachios on top.
Some Indian recipes use a combination of coconut milk, heavy cream, and milk.
The Cooks Thesaurus has a lot of information on rice. http://www.foodsubs.com/Rice.html