Rice Pudding
Please bear with me. I need to tell an unpleasant story in order to illustrate to you how good this recipe is. When I was about four years old, a terrifying, batwing-bespectacled, chain-smoking, frizzy-auburn-haired Irish spinster named Ann Hartigan was employed to be my nanny. I was absolutely petrified of her. One day she served me that famous brand of tinned rice pudding for lunch. I was too scared to admit that I didn’t like it and valiantly proceeded to force it down. Unfortunately though, I was overcome at the final spoonful and wretched the whole lot right back up into my Bunnykins bowl. Dear Miss Hartigan made me eat every last morsel of that regurgitated pap.
From that moment forward I was unable to even look at rice pudding for about twenty-five years, but on one happy occasion (sadly I do not recall the circumstances) I was convinced to taste the recipe below, and have never looked back. This rice pudding does not even remotely resemble the anaemic, pallid tinned variety. It tastes divine, all caramel, nutmeg and creaminess, warming, bolstering, the true Ambrosia that rice pudding should be and the ultimate comforting pudding on a cold, rainy day.
Serves 4
150g pudding rice
410g tin evaporated milk
570ml (1 pint) whole milk
40g sugar
1 whole nutmeg
25g butter
Pre-heat the oven to 150˚C (130˚C fan oven).
Measure the rice and sugar into an ovenproof dish and pour on both types of milk. Stir it all around with a fork and grate on the nutmeg. Cut the butter into little chunks and scatter them over the top.
Pop the dish into the oven and after 30 minutes, take it out and give the rice and milk a good stir. Return to the oven and repeat again after another 30 minutes. Finally put the dish back in the oven for another hour without disturbing. Remove from the oven and try to resist for at least a couple of minutes before digging in, or you are going to get a burnt tongue.
