![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
No, no, not because it was burned. Because I used Chinese Black Rice.
This might strike you as an odd thing to do with black rice, which has the reputation for being hideously expensive. But, a little while back, Amazon Grocery put Venere black rice on sale during its Friday sale, and I was in a mood and ... well, let's just say that at the moment, I have a ton of black rice. (OK, OK, yes, less than that, but still more than any normal single person will work their way through inside six months to a year, unless they cook black rice several times a week.) I misread the number of boxes being included on the sale, you see. Might not have stopped me anyway -- it was REALLY cheap -- but I do have rather a lot of black rice around at the moment now.
The base of the recipe was America's Test Kitchen's rice pudding recipe, sort of. Mostly for the method -- cook the rice first, don't use eggs. Other than that, though ... well, you'll see.
Ingredients
1/4 teaspoon table salt
1 to 1.5 cups black rice, uncooked
2 to 3 cups water
Oil and/or Butter
2 1/2 to 4 cups whole milk
2 and 1/2 cups half and half (optional)
2/3 cup granulated sugar
1 1/4 teaspoons vanilla extract
Pepper (preferably peppercorns in grinder, but preground may do, though you'll need to use more)
Cinnamon
Nutmeg
Cardamom
Dried Fruit to taste
INSTRUCTIONS
Cook rice according to directions, using rice, water, oil/butter and salt. Black rice tends to take a bit longer than white rice to cook, about 20-25 minutes.
Once rice is cooked, slowly add the milk, keeping the rice at a simmer throughout. (According to America's Test Kitchen, you should also add half-and-half at this point. I didn't have any, and it turned out fine, I think because maybe black rice is starchier than white, so that makes up for the missing thickness and creaminess. If you skip the half and half, however, you will need more milk, which is why I wound up scaling the recipe to include 4 cups of milk.)
The original recipe called for you to be adding milk and stirring off and on for another 45 minutes, but I am telling you right now, if you keep this version cooking another 45 minutes, you're going to have burned ick, no matter how low the simmer. You can watch the pudding thicken in front of you very quickly. Certainly not more than another 20 minutes after you initially finish cooking the rice.
Add the spices at this point. I added to taste, so I can't tell you specifically how much to add. The nutmeg and cardamom in particular will depend on how fresh they are. I had ground cardamom that had been sitting around for a couple of months; in that time it went from a spice that I could smell walking in the door, even though it was in a sealed bag, to something that was very weak. I wound up using a lot more of that than I expected; I started out using a tiny pinch and probably wound up using over a teaspoon of cardamom. (It was very VERY weak. If you use fresh ground, or one of the cardamom seeds, you'll use probably a fraction of that.)
And yes, I did add in the pepper on purpose. You don't want a lot of it -- I did six twists of the grinder, so maybe a half-teaspoon -- but it gives a spiciness that counterbalances the heaviness and sweetness of the sugar and other spices. My grinder had black, white, red, and pink peppercorns, but plain black pepper should be fine.
If you want dried fruit, add in at this point. I used raisins, dried apples and pears, but I know a lot of people hate raisins, so use what works for you. (Another recipe I saw, instead of using dried fruit, added chopped fresh fruit -- mangoes, apples, pears, pineapples, peaches -- as a topping, rather than using dried fruit. Given the actual appearance of this dish -- see the end of this recipe for more -- using chopped fresh fruit may work better. If I'd had mangoes around, I'd have given that a try; I think that would work very well with the different taste of the black rice.)
Remove from heat and stir in vanilla extract. Finish with a teaspoon of butter. Cool and serve at room temperature or chilled.
For a slightly different experience, you can take the hot pudding and stir in another half cup of milk at this point, and eat very warm. You could also try plain yogurt for a thicker finish and a slightly more tart taste. (I would not recommend flavored yogurt; this is already sweet enough.)
(I also saw another recipe that added in crispy chopped/crumbled bacon at this point. Hmmm.... Is everything better with bacon?)
This makes a sort of nuttier, more toothsome sort of rice pudding than the normal white rice does. I really liked it a lot, myself.
One thing to watch out for, though, which may put people off this entirely: it's hideously ugly. Seriously. Without the spices, it would look sort of a rich, dark purple; with the spices it looks ... well, like mud. With grains. Tastes great, looks awful. As I said, using chopped fresh fruit as a topping might add a nice lightness to the taste, while working to leaven the appearance.
So there you go!
This might strike you as an odd thing to do with black rice, which has the reputation for being hideously expensive. But, a little while back, Amazon Grocery put Venere black rice on sale during its Friday sale, and I was in a mood and ... well, let's just say that at the moment, I have a ton of black rice. (OK, OK, yes, less than that, but still more than any normal single person will work their way through inside six months to a year, unless they cook black rice several times a week.) I misread the number of boxes being included on the sale, you see. Might not have stopped me anyway -- it was REALLY cheap -- but I do have rather a lot of black rice around at the moment now.
The base of the recipe was America's Test Kitchen's rice pudding recipe, sort of. Mostly for the method -- cook the rice first, don't use eggs. Other than that, though ... well, you'll see.
Stovetop Black Rice Pudding, sort of
Ingredients
1/4 teaspoon table salt
1 to 1.5 cups black rice, uncooked
2 to 3 cups water
Oil and/or Butter
2 1/2 to 4 cups whole milk
2 and 1/2 cups half and half (optional)
2/3 cup granulated sugar
1 1/4 teaspoons vanilla extract
Pepper (preferably peppercorns in grinder, but preground may do, though you'll need to use more)
Cinnamon
Nutmeg
Cardamom
Dried Fruit to taste
INSTRUCTIONS
Cook rice according to directions, using rice, water, oil/butter and salt. Black rice tends to take a bit longer than white rice to cook, about 20-25 minutes.
Once rice is cooked, slowly add the milk, keeping the rice at a simmer throughout. (According to America's Test Kitchen, you should also add half-and-half at this point. I didn't have any, and it turned out fine, I think because maybe black rice is starchier than white, so that makes up for the missing thickness and creaminess. If you skip the half and half, however, you will need more milk, which is why I wound up scaling the recipe to include 4 cups of milk.)
The original recipe called for you to be adding milk and stirring off and on for another 45 minutes, but I am telling you right now, if you keep this version cooking another 45 minutes, you're going to have burned ick, no matter how low the simmer. You can watch the pudding thicken in front of you very quickly. Certainly not more than another 20 minutes after you initially finish cooking the rice.
Add the spices at this point. I added to taste, so I can't tell you specifically how much to add. The nutmeg and cardamom in particular will depend on how fresh they are. I had ground cardamom that had been sitting around for a couple of months; in that time it went from a spice that I could smell walking in the door, even though it was in a sealed bag, to something that was very weak. I wound up using a lot more of that than I expected; I started out using a tiny pinch and probably wound up using over a teaspoon of cardamom. (It was very VERY weak. If you use fresh ground, or one of the cardamom seeds, you'll use probably a fraction of that.)
And yes, I did add in the pepper on purpose. You don't want a lot of it -- I did six twists of the grinder, so maybe a half-teaspoon -- but it gives a spiciness that counterbalances the heaviness and sweetness of the sugar and other spices. My grinder had black, white, red, and pink peppercorns, but plain black pepper should be fine.
If you want dried fruit, add in at this point. I used raisins, dried apples and pears, but I know a lot of people hate raisins, so use what works for you. (Another recipe I saw, instead of using dried fruit, added chopped fresh fruit -- mangoes, apples, pears, pineapples, peaches -- as a topping, rather than using dried fruit. Given the actual appearance of this dish -- see the end of this recipe for more -- using chopped fresh fruit may work better. If I'd had mangoes around, I'd have given that a try; I think that would work very well with the different taste of the black rice.)
Remove from heat and stir in vanilla extract. Finish with a teaspoon of butter. Cool and serve at room temperature or chilled.
For a slightly different experience, you can take the hot pudding and stir in another half cup of milk at this point, and eat very warm. You could also try plain yogurt for a thicker finish and a slightly more tart taste. (I would not recommend flavored yogurt; this is already sweet enough.)
(I also saw another recipe that added in crispy chopped/crumbled bacon at this point. Hmmm.... Is everything better with bacon?)
This makes a sort of nuttier, more toothsome sort of rice pudding than the normal white rice does. I really liked it a lot, myself.
One thing to watch out for, though, which may put people off this entirely: it's hideously ugly. Seriously. Without the spices, it would look sort of a rich, dark purple; with the spices it looks ... well, like mud. With grains. Tastes great, looks awful. As I said, using chopped fresh fruit as a topping might add a nice lightness to the taste, while working to leaven the appearance.
So there you go!
Tags:
