no, I love it when the flavor goes through, plus it really helps plump the raisins...you just don't have to do so many...easier on the waistline and the wallet.

First time I've thought of raisins as a luxury good since i was six...

We had a theme week at my primary school, based on a plague village a mile away, that disappeared in the thirteenth century. We all ran about in sacks for a week, and had meals based on the meals of the time and stuff. I can still remember a banquet where things we take for granted now were presented as wondrous things, and also when we worked out how many of us would have been dead, with the dead lying down. It still shakes me, and I can still remember the feeling of looking at the oak trees that marked the old village, knowing how it wasn't a village any more. Very strange, and moving, and part of being English, I guess. there's so much here that is half forgotten, except in folk memory, and it still has the power to move you, even after all this time.

Go to Bosworth, and think of the peasants fighting because they were told to, or a castle, and think of the people who looked out from those walls. Crawl through a long barrow entrance, and feel the warmth of the sun, or read a book from the 18th century. View an old country house or the moss-eaten lines of stones that mark out a bronze age village on Dartmoor. Everytime it's a weird feeling you get - a knowledge of what people before you did and how people in the future will feel too. You're timeless and mortal at the same time, and it all takes me back to being six, and confused, and suddenly aware that the world was bigger than my own little life. I still carry that, and don't know what to say next. Nothing.



PSD

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This is the work of an Italian narco-anarchic collective. Don't bother insulting them, they can't read English anyway.

Skiffle, thanks for the recipe! Quite good and very creamy (although I did substitute 1/4 of the liquid with cream) and I did add raisins. I used Risotto rice, as that was the only short grain rice I had on hand. We ended up doubling the recipe and were rather concerned that the quantities didn't equate to the 1:2 rice:liquid ratio, but had faith. We did freak after 2 hours in the oven when it was still soupy and decided that we'd take the lid off since the rice was perfectly soft already. it formed a lovely carmelized topping and it's very delicious!

We'll use this recipe again. Might sweeten it just a tad more, but we have American tastes...we like things sweet here!

Hubby says thanks!

Just a nod to PSD on the sense of history you get in Britain... that's why, much as I like Americans in general, I'd hate to live over there. I'd feel so uprooted. Continental Europe would be different - there is the same feeling of temporal depth there as there is here.

Hope that reads OK. It's been a hard week and I'm shattered.



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That which does not kill us makes us stranger.
(Llewelyn the dragon, Ozy and Millie)

Sarah

AAC: glad you liked my recipe. Was a bit startled when I read that you took the lid off your dish, as rice puddings aren't normally covered when we cook them. I often find it can take two hours for the pudding to cook so it is fairly solid. Rice pudding was traditionally the sort of thing that was stuck in the oven to cook quietly at the same time as the Sunday roast.
I'm hungry now; might make some porridge before I go to bed. I've run out of golden syrup to put on it though. (not essential, but lovely !)

Skiffle _
Re putting sweeteners into porridge _ I favour maple syrup for this: Have you tried that combination of foods yet?

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"This was willed where what is willed... can get rather silly."

Skiffle,

Darling Hubby strongly suggested (at risk of imminent torture) that I make another batch of rice pudding last night. So I did, and this time, I did add a little more sugar but not much and I also added a couple of Mexican cinnamon sticks and a sprinkle of nutmeg and a few drops of vanilla extract. (If I'd had vanilla beans, I would have used those instead!)

And even though the proportions were exactly the same as the night before, the whole thing finished and set within an hour and a half with the lid on! Must have been the humidity difference.

Anyway, it is DELICIOUS! And your recipe will be added to the permanent collection of regularly made items.

And one question, when you make your pudding, you don't use a lid? How do you keep it from forming the brown skin on top and drying out? Perhaps it's the difference in ovens?

There's an intense debate in the world of rice pudding lovers about the merits of skin on top of the rice pudding... Personally I don't like the skin, but like the extra flavour that it adds to the finished pudding.



PSD

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This is the work of an Italian narco-anarchic collective. Don't bother insulting them, they can't read English anyway.

the best rice pudding in the world is my mum's. She puts merangue on top, it's just heavenly

Do you know, (he said, settiling in for a bit of a reminisce, thus sending the company scuttling for the exits), a long time ago when I was unemplpyed, I filled my days by doing cooking for the family. I made rice puddings. With skin on top. They looked the business, and people ate them up with every sign of enjoyment, but to me they always tasted of soap. I have no idea what I was doing wrong.

Claire makes a damn good rice pudding, but her natural forte is fruitcake. I don't know all the ingredients, but there's always an empty whisky bottle afterward, and since Claire isn't passed out on the kitchen floor I presume it goes in the cake. Darn good cake, it is. I'll get the recipe if anyone's interested.



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I am very interested in the Universe. I am specialising in the Universe and everything surrounding it. - E. L. Wisty

jon wrote:

> Claire makes a damn good rice pudding, but her natural forte is
> fruitcake.

Well, that explains a few things....



Post Edited (05-24-03 20:06)

PSD

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This is the work of an Italian narco-anarchic collective. Don't bother insulting them, they can't read English anyway.

Yes, she a very good cook ..... heyyyyy!



- - -
I am very interested in the Universe. I am specialising in the Universe and everything surrounding it. - E. L. Wisty

Nice one, PSD !

:-)