spicy rice pudding

See, everytime I even go as far as mentioning rice pudding, everyone around me immediately says “Rice pudding is so dull, I don’t like it” – well, you probably remember it from school lunches or tins, but it doesn’t have to be bland, boring and overcooked with a dreadful skin on top. Imagine you could make it nice and spicy and different.

The spicy rice pudding with charred nectarines is a simple, vegan and gluten free recipe that doesn’t take very long and is a nice option for breakfast if you’re a bit over overnight oats and want to try something different.

You’ll need (for 2 portions) 3 nectarines or peaches. They should feel soft to the touch, but not too soft, otherwise the part where you bake them in the oven will leave you with a mushy mess. 150 g of pudding rice, 1 heaped tea spoon of garam masala, 1 teaspoon of cinnamon, 50g of sugar or liquid sweetener, 1 chilli, a small piece of ginger, a teaspoon of rice syrup and roughly 300-400 ml of a plant milk of your choice, I used almond milk from alpro. Garam Masala is a spice mix from the Indian Cuisine, usually used for savoury dishes.

Remove the stones from your fruit, put them on a baking tray and add the rice syrup. Preheat the oven to 200 degrees Celcius. Start cooking your rice pudding by bringing the rice, the “milk” and the sugar to a boil, then reduce the temperature to the minimum.

Gently stir the rice pudding occasionally, then add your spices. Remove the seeds from the chilli and chop it as finely as possible. Add it to the rice pudding. Grate the ginger with a microplane – check out the post about knives if you’re not sure what that is. If your rice puddings gets too thick before the rice graines are cooked, simply add more “milk”. You’re aiming for a creamy texture, not thick enough to slice it. After about 30 minutes pop your fruit in the oven. The fruit will take roughly ten minutes to warm up, but it depends on how you like them. According to google, rice pudding takes 2 hours to make, which I personally find about an hour and ten too long. Your rice should still have some form of texture left, otherwise what’s the point of using it?!

When your fruit is cooked, you can char them with a small blowtorch or turn on the grill and grill them for another two minutes. Your rice pudding should now be cooked, add a tiny splash of your “milk” to losen it up and serve it with the fruit on top.

Enjoy!