Next: homemade chili powder
Back to main
rice pudding with currants
Not too long ago Danielle Bean wrote about serving her children egg custard for breakfast and in the comments to that post someone added a recipe for rice custard. I didn’t think much of it at the time, but somehow it planted a seed of an idea that gradually grew bigger and bigger.
We frequently have leftover rice. Dom likes to make fried rice with it, but sometimes he just doesn’t get around to it and the rice goes bad. In fact I threw away three containers of it last week, such a shameful waste. But as I looked at various recipes, many of them called for shocking amounts of milk and eggs. With Bella’s new-found love of milk, we’ve been tearing through milk rather more rapidly than before so I was loathe to use four whole cups to make up a dessert I might or might not even enjoy. And many of them started with uncooked rice or used a scant half cup—hardly a way to use up our leftovers. I had to hunt a bit to find exactly what I wanted: a recipe that would maximize the rice and minimize the milk and eggs. I finally found just the thing in my trusty Joy of Cooking. (Although I cooked my rice pudding in one large casserole rather than the individual ramekins or custard cups the recipe called for, it came out just fine.)
So today I whipped up a batch of delicious rice pudding. The only snag: Bella wouldn’t even try a bite. Oh well, more for me! And Dom too, I suppose.
Ingredients:
- 2 large eggs
1/3 cup sugar
grated zest of one lemon
1/4 teaspoon cinnamon
1 1/2 cups whole milk
1 1/2 cups cooked white rice
1/2 cup dried currants
1 teaspoon vanilla
Directions:
Preheat oven to 350. Butter six small ramekins or custard cups or one medium oven-safe casserole dish.
Whisk together eggs, sugar, zest, cinnamon and salt.
Bring milk to simmer in saucepan.
Gradually whisk hot milk into egg mixture.
Stir in currants, rice, vanilla.
Pour into cups or casserole dish. Bake in a water bath* until knife inserted in center comes out clean, 45-50 minutes. Let cool at least 30 minutes before unmolding or eat directly from cups or bowl. Eat warm or cold.
*For water bath: you can use a large roasting pan. The cups should not touch one another or the sides of the pan. Set a cake rack in the bottom or cover the bottom of the pan with a dish towel or several paper towels… the goal is that the dish with the pudding should not directly touch the pan. Place the pan with the custard into the oven and then pour scalding hot water into the pan to come one half to two thirds of the way up the sides of the custard dishes.
COMMENTS
This very rice pudding (with milk poured over the hot pudding once it was served, although cream would be better) was often an end of the month meal at our house when I was a kid. Delicious!
Posted by class factotum on 08/4/08 at 06:16 PMCommenting is not available in this weblog entry.
Comments are being moderated. After you submit your comment it could take up to a couple hours, but usually only a few minutes, before it will appear. Thank you for your patience. If you have any questions, you may contact Domenico Bettinelli.