Monday 9 November 2020

Coconut Rice Pudding With A Spiced Rum Sauce

I know some folk may have bad memories of cold, lumpy rice pudding, (I used to love the stuff out of a tin!) and these days I usually bake a lemon-scented version in the oven.  But I saw this stove-top recipe in a food mag recently (not an expensive one), ripped it out, and stashed it in my recipe folder (I have six folders full of recipes!) for another day.  Well, that day came:-) 

Not lumpy, but smooth and sweet, and very moreish.  We ate it hot, we ate it room temp., we ate it cold.  Always good.  Brings to mind a time our family went to dinner at another family's place.  They served pink custard with bananas for dessert; a lumpy, tasteless, pale-pink concoction with chunks of banana.  Now for one, I was lactose-intolerant (though we didn't know it then), warm milk or warm custard makes me want to throw up, and for two, bananas are a gluey, fibrous nightmare to me.  Yes, you can imagine the aftermath, my friends.  Not a pretty sight!


sweet and spicy pudding



Serves 6-8:

ingredients:

For the syrup:

150 mL (8 fl oz) spiced rum 

100g. (3.5 oz) muscovado sugar 

100g. (3.5 oz) raisins or sultanas - I used sultanas


For the pudding:


50g. (1.8 oz) butter 

150g. (5.3 oz) short-grain pudding rice - I used arborio

150g. (5.3 oz) raw caster sugar 

2 x 400 mL (13.5 oz) cans of coconut milk - see notes below

300 mL (10 fl oz) thickened cream (or coconut cream)

1 tsp vanilla extract


Method:

The syrup:

Grab a large saucepan, and throw in the three syrup ingredients

Give it a stir, and heat gently on a low heat for five minutes, till the sugar is dissolved and you have plump little fruits

Put aside while you make the pudding

The pudding:

In goes the butter (same saucepan, no washing needed) on a medium heat

Melt the butter, then tip in the rice; give it a stir and toast till it just starts to go brown.  Don't worry if it's a little brown (mine was), as you just get a lovely caramelised flavour to the rice

Now you stir in the caster sugar, then add the milk, cream and vanilla

You bring it to a simmer, then cook on a looooow heat for forty minutes - you will need to stir it every five minutes or so; watch out in the last ten as it may start to stick to the pan

Add a wee bit more cream if it's looking too thick

To serve:  stir a third of the syrup into the pudding and serve with extra syrup over the top of the pudding

We had it room temp. and then cold the next day - equally good


Notes:


I made the syrup in the afternoon, and let it sit at room temp. till we had the pudding - delicious!

I've done a bit of coconut milk research lately.  Hard to believe the difference in brands.  The one in a carton had only 7.5% coconut extract!  I was horrified; over 90% was water.  I checked out various tins: the % of coconut extract ranges from 53% to 89%!  So buy carefully, my friends.  You get what you pay for.  I was very lucky to come across an organic coconut cream that is 100% coconut.  Yay!  I used one can of milk and one of cream, to add richness as I had bought one of the watery cans by mistake:-)



gather your syrup ingredients


simmer for five minutes


toast the rice till starting to turn golden


simmer for forty minutes, with the occasional stir


till it looks like this


a bowl for me


and a bowl for Mr P.



    artwork © Sherry's Pickings 


(Yep, I know.  My Kraken looks like a turnip!)

42 comments:

  1. I like the combo of sweet and spicy! Yes to 100% coconut! And that rum raisin syrup sounds and looks absolutely decadent and irresistible.

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    1. hi angie
      yes it is quite delightfully creamy, sweet and spicy. the syrup would be great on other things too...

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  2. What a wonderfully creamy rice pudding, Sherry! It's so dreamy!

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    1. thanks so much kelly. it is very creamy and dreamy :-)

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  3. Being diagnosed as lactose intolerant was a life changer for me. I love rice pudding but we have the argument that it has to be made with whole milk and nothing else. I wonder if this would e acceptable? It looks delicious.

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    1. this is a lovely creamy dessert Suzan. just swap the thickened cream for coconut cream:)

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  4. For a person who eats lots of rice, and uses coconut milk in cooking I’ve never had rice pudding!
    I’m going to save your recipe.
    Thank you Sherry.

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  5. You caused me to read the label on my coconut milk. Three ingredients: organic coconut, filtered water, and guar gum. I hope that’s good enough. It has a lot of fat which comes out of the can as a white solid mass, so I don’t see how it could come from anything but the coconut part of the ingredients.

    be well... mae at maefood.blogspot.com

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    Replies
    1. i wonder what % of coconut it is Mae? but at least clearly coconut is the main ingredient on your can!

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    2. I checked out the ingredient list. The legal maximum for guar gum (which comes from a type of bean) in coconut milk is 1%. Since coconut is the first ingredient, it has to be in greater quantity than the water, the only other ingredient. So it has to be at least 50% and could be more. As I say, the contents of the can is mostly solid at room temperature, and in fact I use it for browning ingredients in recipes where coconut milk is included, so that I don't add more fat. So I think it's ok.

      mae

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    3. that's intereseting Mae. I am always fascinated by labels with spurious lists of ingredients - 'no added sugar' for instance still means a certain amount is added, but just no more than the rules state. Eek! and meat pies with about 10% meat. Grrrr. Advert laws make me cross.

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  6. Didn't realize the actual amount of coconut varied so much from brand to brand. We've been lucky in our purchases, I guess, in that it always seems pretty full of coconut, but now you have me wondering -- next time I get some, I'll definitely be checking the label! Anyway, nice recipe -- rum and coconut work well together. This looks great -- thanks.

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    1. yes it's astonishing re the % of coconut per brand. thanks for dropping by.

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  7. Yum, the pudding looks so comforting and delicious, I love coconut!

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    1. hi natalia
      it is very coconutty and sweet. a great dessert.

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  8. This sounds amazing, Sherry! Can’t wait to make it as soon as possible!

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    1. hi david
      i hope you try it and love it. it is a great sweet treat.

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    2. We absolutely loved this. Made it yesterday "just because" and it is so delicious. And really so easy. Thanks, Sherry! Took me a bit longer to get to it, but now that I have, it will be a regular.

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    3. i'm so pleased you made it and enjoyed it. yes it is easy!

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  9. I used to love cold rice pudding from a tin too Sherry. I've got such great childhood memories of it. Nowadays I'm always trying to make things from scratch though, rather than from a tin. I've got my own rice pudding recipe but not a coconut rice pudding one. And I especially love the spiced rum syrup. Can't wait to try!

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    Replies
    1. hi unknown
      oh yes give the rum syrup a try for sure. it is so delish!

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  10. What a fun idea to combine spiced rum flavor with rice pudding! I agree with you about lumpy rice pudding - in fact, I think that's one of the reasons I've never really loved the stuff. But now you're making me rethink it as this sounds like an awesome dessert!

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  11. Well this looks wonderful! I’d have it for breakfast!

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  12. Ohh that sauce looks addictive! Love it on that creamy porridge

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  13. I loved rice pudding as a kid, but I can't say I've enjoyed it recently. I love the spiced rum in this version, perfect for cooler weather!

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    1. hi lauren
      we really liked the rum syrup! good on ice cream too.

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  14. I was doing a search this morning for rice pudding because I all of a sudden got a craving for it. I love this version. It's so different from this other ones I found. Great timing. Thanks!

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  15. This looks superb Sherry! I'd go for a second bowl of this for sure :D

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  16. As with other cultures, rice porridge is hugely popular here especially at Christmas. But, my wife doesn't care for it one bit. But she loves coconut milk in dishes, so I'll try this one on her and see if it's a go. I know it will be for me.

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    1. ooh that will be interesting to see if your wife likes this one, Ron. it's just so creamy...

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  17. This looks so good! I used to hate rice pudding as a kid but have developed quite a taste for it in my adult years - love the twist of the coconut and of course, the rum! Your pink custard story reminds me of the time I went to my French tutor's house for dinner when I was a kid. For starter she served half a boiled egg fashioned to look like a little yacht with toothpick and paper sail atop a clear jelly. The jelly was like salt and so gross I was gagging but when my tutor left the room my mum said I had to eat it all because it was rude to leave it. Fast forward and when the tutor returned to the room she said she couldn't believe I'd eaten the jelly, it was just for decoration! Can you believe?! I must say it still makes me feel a bit queasy thinking about that story!

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    1. oh no sammie. imagine eating the jelly! yuck. i loathe jelly anyway:) but a salty one on top of half a boiled egg... how weird is that!

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    2. Hii Thank you for this wonderful blog!

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    3. hi martin
      but are you real? do you have a blog? or are you a scammer? i hope not!! Just checked and you are not real... very sad! please don't come back to my blog!!

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