Felicity makes rice pudding

[Pepper Pig Profile]

https://www.theguardian.com/food/2020/j ... asterclass

[Stokey Sue Profile]

i have issues with that

First off, rice pudding is meant to be bland, I don't want spice, yuk, specially the evil cinnamon, in it and I certainly don't want sherry in it. Or any form of brown sugar

Second I really don't see why she needs to start it on the hob, though she insists it's essential, in my youth rice pudding was made by starting it in a cold oven (unless you had an Aga of course) and cooking low and slow

Proper Rice Pudding
Put 2 scant ounces of pudding rice into a very well buttered oven proof dish. Add 1 - 2 ounces of white sugar to taste. Add any flavourings you like, a strip of lemon peel or a grating of nutmeg is OK I suppose. Add a pint of creamy milk (the trick is to use Channel Island, Gold Top, which has a slightly different flavour as well as more butter fat), add some cream or some nuts of butter if you can spare it,
Put in to a slow oven (Gas Mark 2 at most) and allow to cook, When a skin forms, stir it in thoroughly then return to the oven, If you have time, stir in the skin a second time, The pudding is ready to eat when the final skin is an even brown and has a rim ofa sticky toffee where it touches the sides of the dish

Real rice pudding has to be baked, it cannot be made on a hob, though I actually quite like canned Ambrosia, or better still Libby's

[Pepper Pig Profile]

This is a rice-pudding-free house. OH will have nothing to do with it. In fact I can’t remember ever making it.

[Badger's Mate Profile]

For me it's rice, milk, sugar, butter, nutmeg. A little cream or the odd bit of dried fruit, raisins, sultanas or apricots works too. I don't dislike a hint of cardamom but it shouldn't be more than a hint IMO. I've added leftover custard to good effect in the past.

I tend to do them in the oven when it's being used for something else. Tapioca gets cooked the same way.

[Stokey Sue Profile]

For me it's rice, milk, sugar, butter, nutmeg. A little cream or the odd bit of dried fruit, raisins, sultanas or apricots works too. I don't dislike a hint of cardamom but it shouldn't be more than a hint IMO. I've added leftover custard too…

It is my personal opinion that anyone who adds fruit to rice pudding (or porridge or semolina) while cooking should be excommunicated I can just about get on board with fruit compote served with it, rather than jam etc.

Cardamom is a definite possible though

My auntie used to put Bird’s custard on rice pudding. She was otherwise only mildly weird.

[Wic Profile]

Do you remember the school dinners rice pudding? We got a white slop with a blob of red jam on it. As did tapioca, otherwise known as frogspawn. That’s been anathema to me ever since.

My M used to make a really nice baked rice pudding and there were fights over the skin on top.

[Stokey Sue Profile]

Yes, we had white slop, just rice boiled in milk with far too much sugar

We never had tapioca, so many staff, including Mrs C responsible for catering, hated it.

At junior school we had macaroni pudding, horrible. I think it was just cooked elbow macaroni in very thin custard, or possibly just slightly thickened with cornflour weird texture.

Semolina came in smaller portions as a sauce for stewed prunes. I would pig out, loved both but that wasn’t a universal view

[Binky Profile]

I was on free school meals and must be one of the few children who looked forward to lunch each day.

My mother was an abysmal cook and so the school puddings - sponge and custard, chocolate sponge and chocolate sauce, rice pudding, sago, and jelly and custard - were proper treats for me. Mother's idea of a pudding was to open a tin of pineapple chunks and pour on some Carnation milk.

[Badger's Mate Profile]

We used to have semolina at school. Sago too iirc, as well as frogspawn and rice pudding. I loved them all. Prunes and custard also. Maybe that's what turned me to the dark side

These days I only use semolina for handvo.

[Binky Profile]

what is this mysterious 'handvo' please?

[Badger's Mate Profile]

It's a spiced vegetable and semolina loaf, it can also be made with lentils as the thickener. I sometimes make it for picnics. The recipe I use came from Indian Food Made Easy by Anjum Anand.

[Binky Profile]

Righto. The reason I didn't recognise it is that in the book it's called Savoury Semolina Cake

[Sakkarin Profile]

Probably my funniest memory of my mother's rubbish cooking, serving up a steaming tin of rice straight out of the oven with a flourish, and realising she'd forgotten to add the rice. Still, 2 out of 3 ingredients ain't bad, and I guess these days you could pretend it was deliberately slow-cooked milk, like those 6-hour sous-vide boiled eggs.

[karadekoolaid Profile]

I´m actually going to congratulate Felicity here

Anyone who makes an effort to make something as bland, boring and uninteresting as rice pudding taste a little more exciting, deserves a medal.

Over here, the dish is called "Arroz con Leche". Same boring stuff, different language

[scullion Profile]

my mother's idea of making rice pudding was to (maybe par) boil the rice in water, drain, put in a pan with silver top milk and a lot of sugar, sprinkle with nutmeg and leave in the oven until it was well on the way to drying (although sometimes runny).
i looked after her for a while, before she died, and due to her having a couple of bottles of sterilised milk in the fridge (the flavour of ambrosia tinned rice) i made rice pudding for her. her comment was - i hate rice pudding!
i pointed out that she had inflicted hers on us every week of our childhood and that it would only be fair to eat mine, which she did - and scraped the bowl.
i don't usually make rice pudding - i'm not much of a fan (i, too, find it a bit boring), although my partner likes the tinned stuff.
it's a bit like that other offering of my mother's - macaroni pudding - made in the same way as rice pudding - i've never made that one.
she made bread and butter pudding with the same skill.

[Stokey Sue Profile]

The Anjum Anand recipe is on her website

http://www.anjumanand.co.uk/Home/CookBo ... kBookID=59

Looks good, could vary the flavours a bit.

[Amyw Profile]

Rice pudding falls in the like but not love categories . I think it’s for one of those days where I fancy nursery food. I’m fine with the nutmeg vanilla and brown sugar but the extra additions seem like overkill .

Semolina I loved and I agree with Binky , the mains of school dinners left a lot to be desired but the puddings were lovely

[Wic Profile]

My mother used to make chocolate semolina - I thought it was the food of the gods! I might not be so keen now, we rarely eat puds these days, but then it was heaven.

I was a horribly fussy child, I survived on air and bread and cheese, I think. I’m not sure I remember our school puddings as being all that good, though they were always better than the main courses, but sometimes they did Gypsy Tart - that was wonderful.

[MagicMarmite Profile]

One of my very few hated, will not ever eat foods, it's just horrible.
I remember it at school with jam on it which made it worse as I also hate jam.
Just no.

[Renee Profile]

That made me laugh Sakkarin, but probably that's why you became driven to become an excellent cook!!