One of the foods we enjoyed most on our honeymoon was rice pudding. We ate buckets full in Istanbul. It’s one of those desserts that sort of gets forgotten about or skipped over on for more exotic temptations on the menu. Compared with some of the fancier desserts with fussy ingredients, rice pudding can seem a little plane. I assure you it is anything but.
Rice pudding is heart and soul in a bowl. It’s creamy, warm, and sweet. It’s something you’d feed your kids or your dinner guests because it’s unpretentious, yet unexpected. You could eat it out of a plastic bowl, lounging on the couch after a Tuesday night supper. Or you could serve it in crystal at a dinner party. The simplicity of rice pudding is always impressive and there’s no mystery, making it one of the most straight forward foods I’ve ever eaten. And almost all the ingredients are sitting in your kitchen right now. How about that?
For me this recipe was a great start, but I may tweak it as I go along to get it just like I remember eating in Istanbul.
Ingredients: (makes 4 to 6 servings)
3/4 cup uncooked white rice
2 cups milk (divided)
1/3 cup brown sugar
pinch salt
1 egg (beaten)
1 Tablespoon butter
1 vanilla bean (split open the bean and scrape out the insides)
handful of raisins for garnish
Directions: First, boil the rice in 1 1/2 cups of water, until most of the water is absorbed and the rice is cooked.
Add 1 1/2 cups milk to the rice.
Add in the sugar and salt and cook over medium heat until thick and creamy (15 to 20 min).
Stir in remaining milk, egg, butter, and vanilla bean.
Garnish with a few raisins.
Fall in love with rice pudding.
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