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Riz au lait (Rice pudding)

Riz au lait is a timeless classic of French home cooking that appeals to children and adults alike. Raymond Blanc champions his mother’s recipe here - every mother has her own recipe which she passes down through her family, and of course everybody’s mother’s is the best! Raymond Blanc Kitchen Secrets, Series 2. Seves 8

For the pudding
150g/5oz short grain or pudding rice, washed in cold water *3
1.7 litres/3 pints full fat milk *1
100g/3½oz caster sugar
2 tbsp vanilla syrup *2
To serve
50g/2oz icing or caster sugar

1 Preheat the oven to 150C/300F/Gas 2.

2 On a medium heat, in a large saucepan add the milk, sugar, vanilla, rice and bring to the boil.

3 Turn down to a gentle simmer and cook the rice for 30 minutes, stirring from time to time (5 minutes) During the last 5 minutes of the cooking, stir slowly to prevent the rice from sticking. (*4) At this stage it will be three
quarters cooked. Second cooking of the rice pudding in the oven

(SERVED WARM)
1 Remove the saucepan from the heat and pour the rice into a shallow baking dish.

2 Bake in the oven for 30 minutes.

3 Leave to cool for 2 hours. Sprinkle with icing sugar and serve.

4 Never serve straight from the oven. It will need to rest to give a more creamy texture making it more delicious! Or to caramelise and serve cold

(SERVED COLD)
1 Pre-heat your grill to full.

2 Cold rice pudding is also delicious, should you want to caramelise the top of the pudding. Sprinkle with the caster sugar evenly over using a fine sieve.

3 Caramelise for 2-3 minutes under the grill.

4 Cool for 10 minutes and serve.

TIPS

*1 milk – The ratio of rice to milk is roughly 1:10. It may sound incredible but the rice will absorb about 6-8 times its own weight.

*2 vanilla syrup - every recipe in the world tells you to infuse a whole vanilla pod in milk, cream etc. then to be discarded and occasionally washed off and recycled as vanilla sugar. A good vanilla pod will cost you up to £2.50 each. I have found a much better way to use 100% of the pod. It is simple and keeps for as long as you want to as the sugar content will act as a preservative, store in a sealed jar in the fridge: Roughly chop 6 large vanilla pods, removing the hard nib at one end and puree together with a warm sugar syrup (100ml/4fl oz water and 110g/4oz of caster sugar boiled together)

*3 Rice – here we are using short grain or pudding rice, which has a higher starch content to normal long grain rice which is what we need to thicken the pudding. By washing the rice under cold water you are removing any dust particles from the rice which will release their starch during cooking, making the pudding too thick.

*4 Starch – The gentle cooking and occasional stirring of the rice will help to develop the natural starches and thicken the milk, giving it a wonderful creamy texture.

Variations

This is delicious served with pears or peaches poached with vanilla. Alternatively, you could put a layer of fruit compote or jam in the base of the dish before you add the rice.