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Rice Pudding
4 cups milk 1/3 cup rice 1/2 teaspoon salt 1/3 cup sugar Grated rind 1/2 lemon Wash rice, mix ingredients, and pour into buttered pudding-dish; bake three hours in very slow oven, stirring three times during first hour of baking to prevent rice from settling.
A classic slow-baked custard-style rice pudding with no eggs: the starch from the rice and the reduced milk do all the thickening. Three hours at low heat is the whole method, and shortening it gives thin, soupy pudding.
- Oven temperatureThe recipe gives no temperature; "very slow oven" is usually taken as somewhere around 250-300F. Much hotter and the milk is liable to boil and catch at the edges before the rice softens.
- The riceThe recipe specifies only "rice". Short- or medium-grain white rice gives the creamiest result; long-grain works but yields a looser pudding; do not use converted or instant rice.
- Why the stirring mattersRice sinks and sets into a dense layer at the bottom while the milk skins over. Stirring three times in the first hour redistributes it; after that, leave it alone so the top browns.
- MilkWhole milk is intended. Skim or low-fat milk will still thicken from the starch but tastes thin and is more prone to scorching.
- Dish sizeFour cups of milk plus rice suits a 1.5-2 quart buttered baking dish. A shallower dish risks boiling over, and a very deep, narrow one will reduce more slowly.
- Lemon rindGrate only the yellow zest; the white pith turns bitter over three hours. A strip of peel removed before serving is an easy alternative.
- Doneness and yieldIt is done when the rice is fully tender and the surrounding milk has thickened to the consistency of pouring cream, with a browned skin on top. It will set further as it cools. Serves four to six.
Baked milk-and-rice puddings were a fixture of English and American home cookery in the nineteenth century, as rice became cheap and widely available and kitchen ranges could hold a low heat for hours; such puddings were well suited to the cooling oven after the day's main baking. The eggless version, thickened only by rice starch and slow evaporation, was the plainest form, and richer versions added eggs, cream, raisins or nutmeg. Lemon rind and a little salt, as here, are minimal seasoning for a long-baked milk pudding.