Happiness is...Rice Pudding

 

I once had a delicious rice pudding at a restaurant in Glebe called The Yak & Yeti, which is a Nepalese place.  As far as I can tell, it’s a family-run business and has been consistently popular with the locals for years.  I’ve had some excellent meals there (the goat curry was excellent) and had fond memories of the place.

The rice pudding was completely unlike my mothers egg rich one.  Redolent with spices, it was rather liquid and studded with nuts and sultanas.  As I had some brown rice left over yesterday and as I find brown rice fairly nutty to taste, I decided to try making something like the Y&Y one.

In my mortar I ground up some fresh green cardamom, some cinnamon, and added a pinch of fresh-ground nutmeg and a slurp of both vanilla and pandanus essence.  This was put into a bowl with two cups of milk, three tablespoons of brown sugar and a cup of sultanas – all slowly heated until the milk was boiling, the sugar had dissolved and the sultanas had plumped up slightly.  I then added a generous half-cup of ground almonds, a scant half-cup of slivered almonds and two cups of cooked brown rice.  I cooked this on low until the mix was creamy and then turned it out into a bowl and chilled it.

It wasn’t quite the same as the Y&Y as the rice – pre-cooked as it was – contrived to suck up all the milk.  However, the taste was pretty close (and very nice, even if I do say so) and the Husband ate most of it that night, the rotter!

I think Basmati rice would be an improvement and probably it needs a little less sugar and a little more milk.  But quite good and a nice change.  I’m pretty sure the original had saffron in it too, but I’ve run out and haven’t got around to ordering more.

I wonder if I could blend the rice/milk mix, add in the nuts and sultanas and then process in the ice-cream maker…..

I’ll get back to you on that one!

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