Vegan Rice Pudding
If memory serves (a highly dubious proposition in my case these days, but I'm pretty sure I'm right about this one thing), rice pudding gets a quick mention in the movie version of Heartburn. It gets a somewhat less brief treatment in the book, where the issue of raisins v. no raisins gets at least a few paragraphs, but in both cases, I think the upshot was: rice pudding is divisive. Which tells you two things that you should already have known: 1) people are weird, and 2) foodies will argue about anything.
I regard rice pudding as the ultimate comfort food. It's basically a sweeter, richer, thicker version of congee, the ultimate sick food, which I also love without reservation. But if you hate rice pudding or have weird opinions about the suitability of raisins therein, well, you have my sympathy. I have certainly heard people whinge about the texture, or rather the lack of texture, likening it to baby food. To my knowledge, I was never once served it during my childhood, so I have no immature memories to compare it to. I will not complain about this only because one should not speak ill of the dead, [In the eleven years since I last posted an entry here, I have, in the words of Lady Bracknell, gone from unfortunate to careless and lost my second parent. Time gets away from us all.] and in any case, my mother was an excellent cook, and it is likely that she was simply never exposed to rice pudding.
In any event, it would be easy enough to add some textural diversity to rice pudding, if that's your beef. I find a warm smooth bowl of deliciousness comforting as is, especially when it includes raisins that have been made plump and juicy with long simmering. Yum, yum, yum, yum, yum.
In the past,I would most often make rp with real dairy, and up until now, I have never followed a recipe. Seriously, it's just a matter of cooking milk and rice in a ratio of somewhere around 8:1, with the addition of as much sugar, spice, and fat (usually in the form of either cream or egg yolks) as tastes good to you. Sugar and fat, in particular, don't really need long cooking for their contributions to be fully developed, so you can mostly correct things at the end. You can correct other things, too: if it gets too gummy, add a little water and cook for longer. It's so easy and yummy that a recipe often seems almost silly.
However, this is (or at least used to be) a cooking blog, so a recipe seems like maybe a good idea. And when I first made the version below, I happened to measure most of the ingredients. And then I liked it so very much that I tried it again the next day to see if the results were reproducible. They were, and I made notes.
Another thing that's happened in the last so many years is that my younger daughter, L, has become a vegan. She has also completed her undergraduate degree in the middle of a pandemic, and she's now staying with me. She makes most of her own food, but I also like to cook for both of us, so I've been cooking a lot more food without animal products. This has, for the most part, turned out to be a lot easier than I thought. L claims that the easiest course to be a vegan for is dessert, and while I was initially skeptical of this claim, I have since found it to be true.
Before I dive into the recipe, a few points:
There are many different brands and varieties of coconut milk, or at least the local Korea Mart, where I do much of my shopping, has at least five. What I'm using here is the fattiest variety. It happens to be a Thai brand, but I don't know how much that matters. When I shake the can well and then pour it into the saucepan, it has the consistency almost of lightly whipped cream.
The almond milk I'm using is the Kirkland brand. It's much less rich than the coconut milk, and you could likely use any other plant-based milk here with more or less equal success.
The orange peel here is removed with a vegetable peeler, so it's mostly but not entirely zest. The reason I do it this way is that through long simmering, you get not only a subtle orange flavor, but also a very subtle bitterness that's really good here. If you just took a bit of zest off with your microplane, you'd lose the bitterness, but I'm sure it would still be lovely.
Five spice powders also vary greatly from brand to brand. The one I'm using actually has more than five spices in it, which seems wrong somehow, but who am I to argue with Big Spice? In the past I've made rp with just cinnamon and with any number of combinations of spices. I feel like a mixture of half cinnamon and half cardamom would be lovely here. Or cinnamon and nutmeg. Or pumpkin pie spice.
The thing that really levels up this rp is the squeeze of lime juice at the end. Samin Nosrat is a goddess for a reason, people. One of the benefits of vegan desserts is that you can mix faux dairy with acid without worrying about curdling. The one tablespoon in the recipe is just an estimate, really; I typically cut a lime not exactly in half and then take the smaller piece and squeeze that into the pudding.
I love this pudding exactly as I've described it here, but if you're dealing with people who think rice pudding fails because of a lack of texture, your easiest fixes are a) toasting some sweetened coconut and tossing it on the top just before serving or b) chopping some pistachios and stirring them into the pudding immediately before serving. You could also, of course, do both b) and a). These actions might also ameliorate the somewhat, um, homely appearance of the finished product. There's a reason why I didn't post a picture. On the other hand, it's not like you're going to be making this for guests, is it?
This recipe does not make a huge amount, but it's rich (but not overly sweet), so it should serve four pretty easily. If for some reason you're quarantined with a crowd, you can easily double it. Halving it is not so easy, but it keeps well in the refrigerator for longer than it will need to. It may be helpful to add a splash of water when you reheat it.
1 can rich coconut milk
Almond milk
1/3 cup rice
1/3 cup sugar
1 t. five spice powder
Pinch of salt
1 t. vanilla extract
2 strips orange zest
pinch salt
1/2 c. golden raisins
1 T. lime juice
Shake the can of coconut milk well, open it, and pour the contents into a saucepan (the saucepan should be at least a three-quart version; I typically use my 4.5 quart pan, but you can definitely get away with a smaller one). Fill the can with almond milk, then add the almond milk to the saucepan
It will be easies to get your spice powder well mixed in without having to resort to lengthy whisking if you combine the rice, sugar, five spice powder, and salt in a small bowl and mix them together until the powder is well dispersed. In any case, add them to the saucepan and stir to combine. Add the vanilla extract and the strips of orange zest to the saucepan and place over medium high heat. Stir occasionally until little wisps of steam start to appear, then turn the heat to low. The sugar should be fully dissolved at this point, but if it isn't (it will be), stir until it is. Put the lid on the saucepan. Set a timer for thirty minutes.
If you're skittish or concerned that your burner might not be as low as you want, check the mixture occasionally. If you're like me -- meaning you're either brave or easily distracted, which is why I set the timer -- come back when the timer goes off, give the mixture a good stir, stir in the raisins, put the over back on, and set the timer for another thirty minutes.
At this point, the pudding will probably not quite be pudding yet, so set the timer for another thirty minutes and check it again then, or sooner if you like. Taste a bit of it to make sure that the rice has fully, fully cooked to the point where you would never, ever dare to serve it as a side dish. If that's the case, you can proceed now, but even after the pudding has become pudding, I like to turn off the head, put the lid back on, and let it sit for another thirty minutes. If it seems too thick, stir in a bit of water.
Remove the strips of orange zest. Add a generous squeeze of lime juice. Stir well and taste. You may want to add more lime at this point, though I haven't needed to.
I regard rice pudding as the ultimate comfort food. It's basically a sweeter, richer, thicker version of congee, the ultimate sick food, which I also love without reservation. But if you hate rice pudding or have weird opinions about the suitability of raisins therein, well, you have my sympathy. I have certainly heard people whinge about the texture, or rather the lack of texture, likening it to baby food. To my knowledge, I was never once served it during my childhood, so I have no immature memories to compare it to. I will not complain about this only because one should not speak ill of the dead, [In the eleven years since I last posted an entry here, I have, in the words of Lady Bracknell, gone from unfortunate to careless and lost my second parent. Time gets away from us all.] and in any case, my mother was an excellent cook, and it is likely that she was simply never exposed to rice pudding.
In any event, it would be easy enough to add some textural diversity to rice pudding, if that's your beef. I find a warm smooth bowl of deliciousness comforting as is, especially when it includes raisins that have been made plump and juicy with long simmering. Yum, yum, yum, yum, yum.
In the past,I would most often make rp with real dairy, and up until now, I have never followed a recipe. Seriously, it's just a matter of cooking milk and rice in a ratio of somewhere around 8:1, with the addition of as much sugar, spice, and fat (usually in the form of either cream or egg yolks) as tastes good to you. Sugar and fat, in particular, don't really need long cooking for their contributions to be fully developed, so you can mostly correct things at the end. You can correct other things, too: if it gets too gummy, add a little water and cook for longer. It's so easy and yummy that a recipe often seems almost silly.
However, this is (or at least used to be) a cooking blog, so a recipe seems like maybe a good idea. And when I first made the version below, I happened to measure most of the ingredients. And then I liked it so very much that I tried it again the next day to see if the results were reproducible. They were, and I made notes.
Another thing that's happened in the last so many years is that my younger daughter, L, has become a vegan. She has also completed her undergraduate degree in the middle of a pandemic, and she's now staying with me. She makes most of her own food, but I also like to cook for both of us, so I've been cooking a lot more food without animal products. This has, for the most part, turned out to be a lot easier than I thought. L claims that the easiest course to be a vegan for is dessert, and while I was initially skeptical of this claim, I have since found it to be true.
Before I dive into the recipe, a few points:
There are many different brands and varieties of coconut milk, or at least the local Korea Mart, where I do much of my shopping, has at least five. What I'm using here is the fattiest variety. It happens to be a Thai brand, but I don't know how much that matters. When I shake the can well and then pour it into the saucepan, it has the consistency almost of lightly whipped cream.
The almond milk I'm using is the Kirkland brand. It's much less rich than the coconut milk, and you could likely use any other plant-based milk here with more or less equal success.
The orange peel here is removed with a vegetable peeler, so it's mostly but not entirely zest. The reason I do it this way is that through long simmering, you get not only a subtle orange flavor, but also a very subtle bitterness that's really good here. If you just took a bit of zest off with your microplane, you'd lose the bitterness, but I'm sure it would still be lovely.
Five spice powders also vary greatly from brand to brand. The one I'm using actually has more than five spices in it, which seems wrong somehow, but who am I to argue with Big Spice? In the past I've made rp with just cinnamon and with any number of combinations of spices. I feel like a mixture of half cinnamon and half cardamom would be lovely here. Or cinnamon and nutmeg. Or pumpkin pie spice.
The thing that really levels up this rp is the squeeze of lime juice at the end. Samin Nosrat is a goddess for a reason, people. One of the benefits of vegan desserts is that you can mix faux dairy with acid without worrying about curdling. The one tablespoon in the recipe is just an estimate, really; I typically cut a lime not exactly in half and then take the smaller piece and squeeze that into the pudding.
I love this pudding exactly as I've described it here, but if you're dealing with people who think rice pudding fails because of a lack of texture, your easiest fixes are a) toasting some sweetened coconut and tossing it on the top just before serving or b) chopping some pistachios and stirring them into the pudding immediately before serving. You could also, of course, do both b) and a). These actions might also ameliorate the somewhat, um, homely appearance of the finished product. There's a reason why I didn't post a picture. On the other hand, it's not like you're going to be making this for guests, is it?
This recipe does not make a huge amount, but it's rich (but not overly sweet), so it should serve four pretty easily. If for some reason you're quarantined with a crowd, you can easily double it. Halving it is not so easy, but it keeps well in the refrigerator for longer than it will need to. It may be helpful to add a splash of water when you reheat it.
Rice Pudding
1 can rich coconut milk
Almond milk
1/3 cup rice
1/3 cup sugar
1 t. five spice powder
Pinch of salt
1 t. vanilla extract
2 strips orange zest
pinch salt
1/2 c. golden raisins
1 T. lime juice
Shake the can of coconut milk well, open it, and pour the contents into a saucepan (the saucepan should be at least a three-quart version; I typically use my 4.5 quart pan, but you can definitely get away with a smaller one). Fill the can with almond milk, then add the almond milk to the saucepan
It will be easies to get your spice powder well mixed in without having to resort to lengthy whisking if you combine the rice, sugar, five spice powder, and salt in a small bowl and mix them together until the powder is well dispersed. In any case, add them to the saucepan and stir to combine. Add the vanilla extract and the strips of orange zest to the saucepan and place over medium high heat. Stir occasionally until little wisps of steam start to appear, then turn the heat to low. The sugar should be fully dissolved at this point, but if it isn't (it will be), stir until it is. Put the lid on the saucepan. Set a timer for thirty minutes.
If you're skittish or concerned that your burner might not be as low as you want, check the mixture occasionally. If you're like me -- meaning you're either brave or easily distracted, which is why I set the timer -- come back when the timer goes off, give the mixture a good stir, stir in the raisins, put the over back on, and set the timer for another thirty minutes.
At this point, the pudding will probably not quite be pudding yet, so set the timer for another thirty minutes and check it again then, or sooner if you like. Taste a bit of it to make sure that the rice has fully, fully cooked to the point where you would never, ever dare to serve it as a side dish. If that's the case, you can proceed now, but even after the pudding has become pudding, I like to turn off the head, put the lid back on, and let it sit for another thirty minutes. If it seems too thick, stir in a bit of water.
Remove the strips of orange zest. Add a generous squeeze of lime juice. Stir well and taste. You may want to add more lime at this point, though I haven't needed to.
posted by anapestic at 2:09 PM
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