Christmas (Rice) Pudding

I needed some comfort food tonight. I'm home sick and feeling pretty rotten, and I couldn't think of anything at all that I wanted to eat. Except rice pudding.

I am trying to feel festive despite the totally unChristmassy +5 C weather outside that threatens to melt what litte snow we have and expose us to an ugly brown, rather than romantic white, Christmas. So I decided to combine the two concepts - Christmassyness and rice pudding. And came up with this pudding, which really isn't much of a stretch for me as I ususally lace my rice pudding with cinnamon, cardamom and raisins (sorry Sam). This time I just added currants and nutmeg and candied peel as well.

It hit the spot. It was creamy and spicey and fruity. And gone quickly.

The nutmegginess was slightly reminiscent of eggnog and the currants reminded me of mince tarts or  plumb pudding.

If you're in the mood for a Christmassy pudding but don't want to be bothered with making an actual Christmas pudding, give it a whirl:

• 250 ml carnaroli rice
• 250 ml whole milk
• 375 ml water
• 5 ml ground cinnamon
• 5 ml ground cardamom
• 2 ml ground nutmeg
• 200 ml sugar
• 125 ml currants
• 125 ml raisins
• 15 ml very finely chopped candied peel
• 10 ml vanilla extract
• 125 ml cream

Place all ingredients except cream and vamilla in a heavy pot. Bring to a gentle boil, reduce heat to low, cover and simmer for 15 minutes, or according to the time given on the pacakge of rice, adding more liquid if necessary during cooking. When rice is cooked through, remove from heat and stir through the cream and vanilla. You can dish it up now, straight from the pot, or you can do what I did which was to:

Allow the pudding to cool slightly.  Spoon portions of warm pudding into ramekins. Sprinkle 1 to 2 tablespoons of sugar over the top of each ramekin. Caramelize the sugar under the broiler or with a blowtorch to form a crusty top.

Comments

[Cori]

Think regular rice would be okay? No risotto style rice here...

[sam]

thanks for the raisin sympathy!
Have a wonderful Christmas - I hope you start to feel better for it.

xsam