Aromatic Automatic Rice Pudding

Featured Ingredient: Evaporated Milk

This is my second attempt at this pudding.  I thought fragrant basmati rice would make a great base for a rice pudding. Inspired by a Indian savory rice dish, I omitted the savory ingredients and balanced the pudding with sweet coconut flavor, the spice of cinnamon and fresh citrusy orange zest. Plus a few plumped up golden raisins for additional texture.

The last time I made this the flavor was good, but the pudding ended up more like a risotto. I figure OK.  Make the pudding and cook the rice simultaneously but separately -- then add together.  What I got was the creaminess of a pudding married with tender grains of rice.  Total cooking time from start to finish about 22 minutes.

Aromatic Rice Pudding - Serves 3

Make the pudding:
1/4 cup white sugar
1 tbsp plus 2 1/2 tsps cornstarch
1/8 tsp salt
1 cup plus 3 tbsp whole milk
1 tbsp butter
1 tsp coconut extract
1/4 cup golden raisins

Whisk first three dry ingredients in a medium saucepan. Add milk, whisk together.  Turn on to medium heat While mixture warms up continue whisking until bubbly and thickened.  Make sure the mixture is a little thinner than standard pudding as you are going to add rice to it. Remove from heat stir in butter until melted.  Stir in coconut extract and raisins.

Make the rice:
1/3 cup basmatic rice
5 oz. can of Evaporated Milk (add enough water to come up to 1 cup of liquid)
pinch of salt
1/2 tsp cinnamon
1/2 tsp grated orange zest

Heat milk and water until it just starts to boil, you don't want to scald the milk, immediately turn to low and stir in rice.  Let simmer on low for about 15 minutes.  Check doneness of rice and add water if needed, if all the liquid has been absorbed. Cook another 5 minutes until tender. Remove from heat, stir in cinnamon and orange zest.

Put them together:

Put rice into the pudding. If you want a creamier texture add less rice if you love want more texture add all rice.

Aromatic Rice Pudding

This is linked to Melt in your Mouth Mondays on:
Make Ahead Meals for Busy Moms