Aaaah yes, but if it's just pears honey and spices (lovely though that sounds) it's not actually a pudding, is it?

Puddings involve: carbohydrates of the stodgy variety (wheat, oats, rice, barley etc); fat (usually suet but sometimes butter, olive oil or whatever) and steaming or baking for ages. Which is why steak and kidney pudding is a pudding (as is haggis -- 'queen o' the puddin' race' if I remember rightly) and banana and mango ice cream with candied chillies and raspberry coulis (despite the fact it's arguably one of the most delicious ad refreshing dishes on the planet) is just a dessert.

Yes, you have touched a nerve and discovered my obsession with all things sweet, sticky and bad for you.

(If you're very nice to me, I might give you my recipe for the Moroccan equivalent of rice pudding, which involves barley, honey, raisins, almonds and a few secret ingredients . . . )



Jesus saves; Buddha does incremental backup.

I do love a good rice pudding...with raisins and cinnamon and nutmeg and cloves if I'm in the mood. Not too sweet, mind you, just creamy creamy creamy! Great use for leftover rice from Chinese take-out!

My mom also used to make a quick version for breakfast...we'd cook rice in milk on the stove, throw in some raisins, sugar and cinnamon while it cooked. Then when the rice was done, you pour it in your bowl and put a little half and half on top. MMmmMMMm! Not as creamy as the real pudding, but right good! I still make it occasionally.

Speaking of breakfast, one of my latest loves is making oatmeal. (I used to only like Oatmeal in cookies!) I use the microwave to make it and instead of water I use apple juice or cider (not the hard kind, PSD! LOL) and put just a hint of vanilla and a wee bit of sugar and cook it with raisins in it. When it comes out, I put a dot of butter on top and stir it in for some creaminess. NUMMMY! And relatively healthy too if you can avoid a lot of butter!

Yes, I don't see pudding that often around here. An occassional bread pudding for dessert at certain restaurants. We do have an annual family tradition of having a pudding to follow our roast beef dinner on Christmas. Last few years we've mail ordered Tiptree Christmas Pudding from a British import shop. With brandy butter, of course.

Of course :-)

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Warning! Product may contain Newts!

Rice pudding made from left-over Chinese takeaway ! Not round here you don't. Chinese takeaways use long-grain rice, but rice pudding should be made from short grain rice.
Classic rice pudding is just rice, milk and sugar, with a dusting of nutmeg. The American version with raisins etc. sounds nice, but isn't what most English people would expect to be served as rice pudding.

AAC: when you say you use cider, but not the hard kind, what do you mean ? A low alcohol variety ? By definition, a cider has to be fermented and alcoholic, surely.

I like good traditional ciders, me. They're stronger than most beers, too. Beer is for girls :)

in the US, you have the choice of apple cider, which is first press and includes some pulp and may be a bit cloudy...then there's juice...which has been highly filtered. We also have hard cider, which has been fermented.

I grew up in Apple country and in Washington State, we knows our apples! LOL

I'm a traditional (English) cider fan as well -- there's a really good orchard (Cassells) just up the road in Oakington (Cambs). And they use traditional Somerset apple varieties too, so traditional West Country cider in East Anglia.

My all-time favourite tho is Burrow Hill in south Somerset -- 6 miles down the road from my parents, so whenever I visit a buy a gallon or two of the genuine, unpasteurised stuff (which they can only sell on the farm, and anyway it doesn't travel -- you have to drink it all withing 12 hours of it coming out of the barrel or it goes sour. What a shame!)

And if you like traditional dry ciders, you'd love a good perry (perry's like traditional cider, but it's made from pears -- and as they're much more sugary than apples, dry perry must be handled with great care -- it's unbelievably strong). Lyne Down Farm from West Dorset's my fave . . .



Jesus saves; Buddha does incremental backup.

Over here the 'hard kind' would probably be Scrumpy (aka 'suicider') - a few weeks back I tried a pint of 9% abv, and it tasted stagnant, but after the second pint you were past caring. Over here juice is juice, no matter how filtered or pulpy.



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, American apple cider is non-alcoholic. It's basically just the fresh juice from pressed apples, not clarified and purified the way bottled apple juice is. The best stuff is from local cider mills, and is unpasteurized (the pasteurized stuff isn't bad, but the fresh is better). They usually also sell fresh donuts to go with the cider.

Anything with any alcohol content is referred to as 'hard' cider. Sometimes fresh cider will go hard by itself, but more often it turns to vinegar if you don't drink it quickly enough.

And for the record, I like both fresh cider and hard cider (but I'm not overly keen on beer).



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"I've often said that the difference between British and American SF TV series is that the British ones have three-dimensional characters and cardboard spaceships, while the Americans do it the other way around."
--Ross Smith

Okay, Skiffle...you've inspired me (dammit!) I WANT RICE PUDDING!

so what's your recipe. I'm making it late tonite or tomorrow. So prove to me how much better your version is <wink!>

can't say I won't add some raisins to it though! LOL

Raisins? Heretic!



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.

raisins do not belong in a rice pudding. So is is written.

<doing best Homer Simpson impression> MMMMMMMMMM......raisins.......

Of course not. Where raisins belong is in curry...

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"Warning! Product may contain Newts!"

sultanas work better, imho.

Raisins? Sultanas? In _curry_?!! What are you... men? (Oh, you are. Fair enough.)

Seriously, a true curry is made with authentic ingredients. I have even been known to blend my own different curry powders to suit the base ingredient of the curry being made. On the other hand, I really don't see the problem with putting raisins into rice pudding. Sounds like a jolly good idea to me. I bet it tastes a lot better than the general practice at my primary school, which was to stir a spoonful of disgusting, artificially coloured, unidentifiable bright red jam into it. Blecccccch.

Oh, and while we're on the subject of sweet things, a friend on my online journal has just introduced me to this site:

[www.hotelchocolat.com]

Unfortunately they don't do deliveries outside the UK as yet, but I think they are working on it. I have just joined their Chocolate Tasting Club... mmmm!



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

Sarah

Jam used to go in semolina, rice pudding had chocolate drops...

This evening I've been enjoying a nice unoaked shiraz and a bar of chocolate...



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.

Our school rice pudding had something-that-pretended-to-be-jam, but then the pudding was sloppy, more like the tinned stuff. I ate it anyway

The recipe I use for rice pudding is:

3 tablespoons pudding rice - shortgrain rice, that is
2 ounces of sugar
1 pint milk

Put rice and sugar in dish. Pour over milk. cook at 140 C for 1 1/2 hours +
I check it after hour and half and keep going back until it looks nicely set.

easy-peasy! thanks Skiffle...will try it! (of course I will be adding RAISINS! lol)

If you must, stir them in at the end, otherwise the flavour will spread too far.

Of course, raisins in Bread and Butter Pudding are more than acceptable...



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.