Comfort food

Today has been an IT nightmare in the Sheffield Hospitals Charity office.  I should mention at this point that all names have been changed to protect the innocent, if I get permission to mention them I shall do away with such precautions.  One of our fundraisers, let's called her Jennifer, valiantly battled with poor formatting and a sickly proxy server to get the legacy campaign details all up on the website. I, on the other hand, had rather a desperate conversation with the IT Helpdesk before deciding to call it a day. 

As a result I'm feeling the need for good comfort food.  Sadly, I remembered a chocolate Easter Maltesers animal (I think it was a rabbit but there was definitely an element of an alarmed beagle) I'd forgotten about in my bag so I inhaled that on my way home.  Must remember not to leave seasonal chocolate products anywhere about my person, it inevitably leads to such disappointing incidents.  Anyway, comfort food.  Apple & Cinnamon Crumble is an obvious choice, with large amounts of custard, but my favourite comfort food is Rice Pudding. 

Also, I have been alerted to the fact that marmalade (see previous post) may be a little too time-consuming and, dare I say it, advanced for some of my friends....two of my friends....let's call them Jennifer and Susan....I would disagree, however, I see their point but shall refrain from giving examples, especially the one about the bread-maker with no paddle.  Hopefully the following is a little more their (and others) thing and I shall endevour to get the Banana & Chocolate Loaf recipe up in the next post, Susan mentioned fruit loaf so hopefully that's close enough.

Back to the rice pudding.  The basis of this recipe comes from Nigel Slater I think, fairly certain, but I change the flavours quite regularly depending on the season.  Vanilla is the staple, with cinnamon being the one I love around Christmas and I make a lemon verbena version all through the summer. 

As a quick aside, I grow lemon verbena in a pot in the garden, fantastic herb and impossible to get in the shops - such a massive oversight as it has an amazing lemony aroma, not really a taste as such, more a fragrance in your mouth.  You can get a plant online very easily, just Google it and something will come up.  They grow beautifully in a pot but need sun for as much as the day as possible, I grow mine on the patio as that gets sun nearly all day in the summer.  I'm afraid the slightest hint of frost or low temperatures causes them to sulk and inevitable die, so around November I wrap mine up in garden fleece and pop it in the pop-up greenhouse.  Please try it, it's such a gorgeous little creature and can be used in lots of recipes, normally dairy-based I just realised, like panna cotta.

Back to the Rice Pudding, the recipe below is for the basic vanilla version but definitely experiment with flavours:

Rice Pudding

Serves two regular people or one Clare.  Multiply as needed, I usually times all ingredients (bar the vanilla and butter, that stays the same) by three.

1 pint full-cream milk (I use semi-skimmed with no problems)
50g short-grain pudding rice (also works with risotto rice if circumstances require)
2tbsps caster sugar (the unrefined, golden stuff if possible please)
a knob of butter (around 25g but I usually use less, one has to consider the waistline)
a vanilla pod (or other flavours as desired, maybe a cinnamon stick, couple of sprigs of lemon verbena....)


Pre-heat the oven to 180◦c. 

Put the milk in a pan and add the sugar.  Cut the vanilla pod in half (slide knife down the middle horizontally) and then run a knife down each side to scrape out the little black seeds.  Pop the seeds and whole pod into the milk and bring it to the boil.  You want to bring it just to the boil, not actually boil it, so keep an eye on in as milk goes from beautifully self-contained to burnt all over your hob in seconds.  It's about the right temperature when it's just a bit too hot to comfortably dip your finger in it - not terribly hygenic advice that, ummm make sure your hands are clean....

You'll need an oven-proof dish that will comfortably hold all the milk in the pan (obviously depends how many you're cooking for).  Put the rice and butter in the said dish and pour the hot milk over the top, stir it a bit then stick it in the oven.

Timings depend on how much you're cooking and how you like it.  I am basing the following on the fact that you like it like I like - thick and creamy but still gently runny.  Start with half an hour in the oven then check it, the rice will be sticking together and there will be a skin on top, stir it gently to avoid slopping milk everywhere but to help break the rice up a bit.  After another half an hour do the same again.  You will notice that the milk is starting to thicken and the rice isn't sticking in great clumps as much, from then on check it every 15 minutes or so.  My version (so three times this recipe i.e. 3 pints of milk etc) takes around an hour and half but I think an hour is probably sufficient for this recipe.  Please be careful not to overcook as you'll end up with a great wodge of milky rice.  I find it difficult to tell without stirring it each time I check it but if you want a skin that's not possible, personally I'd sacrifice the skin rather than lose the whole lot to disappointing wodginess...

So the skin. Rice puddings form a skin as they cook.  I stir the skin in as I can't bear it, if you love the skin (I hear many do) then you need to time it that you give can give it a good stir in the thickened-milk stage and still have time to leave it for 20 minutes or so for the skin to form.  I also recommend using 25g (or multiples thereof) of butter in the recipe, it seems to help the skin to form.  As I refuse to nuture any form of skin on my rice pudding I'm not much help here but I'm sure others can assist.

Once you've reached the appropriate texture remove it from the oven and allow to cool.  Please bear in mind that it will continue to thicken as it cools so you want to keep it sufficiently runny whilst in the oven.  I stir mine to combine everything but if you're keeping the skin you'll want to avoid that. 

Once cooled serve with a good strawberry jam or, better still, on it's own.  Marmalade is nice with the cinnamon version, though probably an aquired taste.