Ruthy's Rice Pudding

Rice pudding is famous.

Almost every culture has a form of sweet rice.

Sweet rice and custard????

Oh my stars, better yet!

I worked in a Greek Family restaurant for eleven years. They made Greek rice pudding...

It was good, but this way is better. I'm going to go out on a limb and say WAY BETTER.

But try it. Taste test. You be the judge.

Baked rice puddings can get dry. Pithy.

YUCK.

Greek rice puddings lack depth of flavor. They're tasty and sweet, but it's basically rice and milk and sugar, slow simmered.

Ummm.... Not so much.

But this????

Oh. This is GOOD STUFF!

This recipe is a mix of my old fashioned custard recipe from the Cream Corn Starch box, circa 1970-something. An older neighbor told me about it and I was always looking for great basic recipes. Why re-invent the wheel?

So this basic vanilla pudding rocks. It's done in about 10 minutes (including cooking time)

has no chemical or weird aftertaste and I use it as a filling for fancy cakes...

Boston Cream Pie

Cannolis

Cream puffs

And the base for rice pudding:

Here's the original recipe:

1/4 cup Butter (one-half stick)

1/2 cup Cream Corn Starch

1  1/2 Cups Sugar

4 Cups Milk

4 Egg Yolks

2 teaspoons vanilla extract

Melt butter in 3 quart saucepan. Remove from heat for a minute. Just long enough to add the sugar/corn starch mixture and not burn anything. Mix sugar and cornstarch in bowl. Add to butter.

Add in milk and egg yolks.
(the whites can be used for meringue kisses... or scrambled egg whites... or white cake...)

Whisk until combined.

Cook over medium to medium high heat (only if you STAND THERE AND STIR. Do not do what I do and think you can fold a load of laundry or check e-mails. Trust me. You cannot.)

If you mess up the above step and burn it, sigh...

I do that often. Then I realize I am not Super Mom or a Magic Fairy and pudding should be stirred.

So then I stand there and stir the next batch while reading a great ROMANCE NOVEL like this one:

See, then the time passes quickly. 

We Yanks are a strange breed. Yes. I know.

Okay, so stir until thick and mixture just comes to a boil.

Remove from heat, add vanilla.

DONE!!!!!

So there you have it, the base, the bottom line, the delicious, creamy custardy goodness.

Now:

Add cooked rice.

I use Basmati rice because I love the texture, but you can use any normal rice. Typically rice can be cooked like this:

4 cups water (I do measure this)

1 tablespoon salt (No, I don't measure, I just dump)

2 cups rice (this I measure)

Splash of olive oil

Bring water to a boil. Add in salt, oil and rice. Bring back to a boil. Cover lightly, reduce heat to simmer for twenty minutes. Turn off heat.

Now this is how I make rice all the time. And it works great. The hint of salt in the rice is AWESOME in the pudding.

Mix rice with custard. Put in bowl. Sprinkle with nutmeg.

Enjoy.