Do you love Indian food?

My love for Indian food is one of a kind. We understand each other.

It’s quite simple: I want a party of flavours in my mouth and Indian food gives me just that!

Ya, I’m on my fourth coffee so you’ll have to excuse my nonsense!

SO!

Indian food is hands down my favourite kind of food.

Now don’t hate! I have plenty of love for Thai, Italian and Korean but my true fav is Indian and it will always be Indian!

So now that you have this incredible piece of information about me (ha!), let’s talk Indian style desserts.

After eating super flavourful dishes, it’s always good to calm your taste buds down.

Since I was a child, I had this repulsion to rice pudding for some weird reason.

(I also didn’t like egg sandwiches because I thought the black pepper in it was a bunch of ants walking around in my sandwich so the underlying reason might be as legitimate as this one…) yes, I had a very developed sense of imagination!

All of that to say that rice pudding wasn’t my first choice when it came to desserts!

But that silliness ended quickly after I had my first bite of Indian style Basmati rice pudding.

Perfect dessert after a spicy meal! And the subtle hint of spices…YUM!

Recipe slightly altered from: http://www.epicurious.com/recipes/food/views/Vanilla-Bean-Rice-Pudding-351549


Course: Dessert    Yield: 6 servings    Prep Time: 20 mins    Cook Time: 40 mins  


Ingredients

  • 1 1/2 Cup of water
  • 3/4 Cup of basmati rice
  • 1/4 Teaspoon of salt
  • 3 Cup of whole milk
  • 1 Cup of heavy whipping cream
  • 1/2 Cup of sugar
  • 1/2 vanilla bean, split length wise
  • 1 Chai tea bag

Instructions

  1. To start, bring 1 1/2 cups water, rice, and salt to simmer in heavy large saucepan over medium-high heat. Reduce heat to low; add tea bag and cover.
  2. Make sure to be careful no to burst the tea bags, so be gentle :).
  3. Simmer until water is absorbed, about 10 minutes. Mix the rice to make sure the chai flavour is well mixed and Take tea bag out. Add milk, cream, and sugar.
  4. Scrape in seeds from vanilla bean; add bean. Increase heat to medium; cook uncovered until rice is tender and mixture thickens slightly to a soft, creamy texture, stirring occasionally, about 35 minutes.
  5. Remove pudding from heat and discard vanilla bean. Divide pudding evenly among small bowls. Serve warm or press plastic wrap directly onto surface of each pudding and chill thoroughly.
  6. DO AHEAD: Pudding can be made 2 days ahead. Keep refrigerated.
December 2, 2012

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  • Sudeshna and Kalyan Banerjee

    Hi Alexandra,

    I have tasted and cooked lot many rice puddings, but this one is a whole different. The vanilla and chai combo seems a greatone, will try it out surely. If you dont mind I’m sharing a rice pudding recipe I just prepared a few days back.

    Here’s the link:
    http://bengalicuisine.net/2013/gurer-payesh-rice-pudding-with-jaggery/