Rice Pudding

June 17, 2003

Many years ago when I was a sweet young thing, I embarked on my OE. My first job overseas was as a reporter on a country newspaper in Victoria, Australia. I was a city girl and working in a country town, population circa 8000 people, was something of a culture shock.

I lasted there three months before moving to the brighter lights of Adelaide in South Australia. But those three months had their moments.

I boarded with an English family who had emigrated a few years before. The husband worked as manager on a local farm. His wife spent her time planning what she would do when they moved on to the city. Unfortunately her husband didn't share her plans and behind her back went and bought himself some local farm land. At times I felt like the meat in the sandwich as they debated the wisdom of his purchase! I have to say I kind of sympathised with her…

She had one of those wonderful old Aga stoves and would spend her afternoons cooking up huge English dinners. There was always a large main course and that was enough to keep me happy for a week. But it would be followed by dessert. Not just a delicate little stewed apricot with a small scoop of ice cream. No, these were big English puddings - the sort that would enable a man to farm the land from dawn till dusk (unless of course he had a massive attack of indigestion, or needed to sleep off the carbohydrates).

I can still see them being triumphantly deposited on the dining table with a flourish. Bread and butter pudding, roly poly pudding, steamed pudding, tapioca, baked apples and custard, fruit crumbles, fruit sponges, spotted dick, rhubarb pie.

Rarely having room for dessert after a roast dinner or stewed chops or whatever farm meat the husband brought home, I would frequently pass on the sweet course. Except when there was rice pudding. I've had a passion for it ever since I was a child. It was the sort of dish mothers used to make in those post-War days because it could be baked in the oven along with a casserole.

A rice pudding is simplicity itself to make. The main requirement is a nice medium or short-grain (see picture) slightly sticky rice rather than something like basmati that remains in separate grains.

To me, an essential part of rice pudding is a good sprinkling of nutmeg on top. During the slow cooking this forms a kind of skin over the top of the pudding. Pierce it and you have all this wonderful creamy rice lurking below. It really does pay to have whole nutmegs and a little nutmeg grater so you get a wonderful fresh-flavoured nutmeg powder.

Of course some cooks cannot abide a skin on a rice pudding and urge you to stir it from time to time.

Other cooks like to add cinnamon towards the end of cooking.

Here is the basic rice pudding that my mother used to make.

Rice Pudding

50g medium grain rice
600ml milk (or half and half milk and cream)
1 tablespoon butter
1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract
2 tablespoon sugar
pinch salt
freshly grated nutmeg

Wash the rice and place it in an ovenproof dish with the milk, butter, sugar, salt and vanilla. Sprinkle over the nutmeg.

Place in a pre-heated 150C oven and bake for about 90 minutes.

This can be served hot or cold with lightly whipped cream. You can serve it with poached apricots or peaches or other fruit.

You can skip the nutmeg and make the rice in a square dish, chill it then cut it into individual diamond shapes, sprinkle the top with some sugar and give it a quick burst under a hot grill or a blast with a chef's torch, brulee-style and serve it on a flat plate with a few slices of poached orange - or some kiwifruit slices, cherries, or whatever tastefully arranged. Give it this sort of "restaurant treatment‚", perhaps with a puddle of berry coulis and you will bring your rice pud into the 21st century and have your guests asking for more.

The addition of some lemon zest will also give the dessert a pleasant lift.