Rice Pudding

We’ve gone all retro here today!  Hubby doesn’t have any cricket today (outdoor during the summer, indoor during the winter – it rules our lives!) so I thought it would be a perfect opportunity to make a proper Sunday Dinner.  I’ve bought a huge chicken, so that we’ll have plenty of leftovers!  Chicken soup and chicken pie here we come! 

Since we’ve stepped back in time to the 50’s, I thought I’d also make hubby a rice pudding.  This is a real taste of our childhood.  My grandmother used to make the best rice puddings, popped in the Rayburn to cook quietly until it turned into a dish of creamy unctuousness. 

This is how I make them today.  The quantities given below will provide four sensible servings.  I’d like to say we have leftovers for tomorrow ...... but we don’t! 

2oz short grain pudding rice

2tb sugar

Small knob of butter

Grated nutmeg

1 – 1 ½ pints of full cream milk* 

* I often add a small pot of single cream to the milk to make this extra creamy – it’s an occasional treat after all! 

Simply place all the ingredients into a buttered dish and bake in a low to medium oven for 2 – 2 ½ hours.  Stir two or three times during the first hour but leave for the remainder of the cooking time so that a lovely brown nutmeggy skin forms.  I always add a second grating of nutmeg after the final stir. 

You can cook this in the same oven as the Sunday roast, just pop it into the bottom of the oven. 

I serve it as it is, but some people like a spoonful of jam added.  The choice is yours!

N.B.  Pop your dish on an old baking tray to cook- I've lost count of the number of times mine have boiled over and it makes a terrible mess.  A baking tray contains the mess!