Indian Rice Pudding Recipe

Alton Brown teaches you how to make an Indian rice pudding with pistachios and Indian spices.

For centuries, rice has been a key dessert ingredient in the cuisines of cultures heavily vested in said cereal. Although many of these cultures do have a form of rice pudding, I lean towards those that hail from the Indian subcontinent where rice is moistened with some milk and then subtly favored with everything from raisins to almonds, pistachios, rosewater, saffron and cardamom. But first and foremost, we need rice, a cup of long grain rice, cooked long grain rice. Now rice pudding should never ever be made with converted rice or boil in the bag rice because those rices have been processed in order to remove some of the free starch. They do that because they want their rice to not be sticky. We on the other hand need sticky. We need starch. Now as for the rest of the software, we will require the services of one cup of milk, one half cup of heavy cream, three quarters of a cup of coconut milk from a can, two ounces, that’s about a quarter of a cup of sugar, one quarter teaspoon of ground cardamom and one and a half ounces each of golden raisins and chopped unsalted pistachios for your volumetric fans, that’s about a third of a cup each. We will also require in the hardware division, one rubber or silicon spatula and one large nonstick skillet. First ingredient in the pan, our one cup of milk, followed immediately by our one cup of liberated long grain. Dump that right into the pan and just stir until this comes to a boil. Now yes, of course, this would come to a boil even faster if we were using high heat. But speed is not the issue here. I don’t want to go fast. What I want to do is to do this slowly so that we liberate some starch from the grains. Think risotto, you don’t rush risotto do you? Of course not. Take your time, stir occasionally and bring to a boil. Once you have hit a boil as we have, drop the heat to low and simmer until slightly thick at about 5 minutes and stir often won't you? When your mixture does this, you’re ready to add the rest of the ingredients so boost your heat to medium, pour in both the cream and the coconut milk. Very nice and then the sugar and the cardamom. Now the cardamom is going to want to clump up on you so I suggest you switch over to a whisk just for a couple of minutes and don’t worry, your nonstick can take it. When it comes back to a boil, drop the heat to low and cook for another five minutes or until it reaches a nice thick creamy consistency like this then, kill the heat and add the goodness. We’re going to go with the pistachios and the raisins. I’ll stir that in and then portion up into small cups. And serve either warm or chill. I like to let them sit overnight. I think they’re better that way.