Arroz con Leche
Spanish Creamy Rice Pudding
Round rice simmered very slowly in a great deal of milk until it gives up its starch and the whole pan turns thick and creamy. Butter goes in at the end. Asturias, which has the cows, makes the most celebrated version and sometimes burns sugar on top.
The Spanish recipe read cooks 100 g of round rice in a litre of milk with a cinnamon stick and vanilla for about 50 minutes, adds 150 g of sugar and 50 g of butter, and rests it for an hour. It may be dusted with cinnamon or given a burnt sugar top.
Ingredients
Ingredients
- 100 g round rice (pudding rice or paella rice)
- 1 litre whole milk
- 1 cinnamon stick
- 1 vanilla pod, split, or 2 strips of lemon zest
- 150 g caster sugar
- 50 g unsalted butter
- Ground cinnamon, to serve
Method
- Simmer Put the rice, milk, cinnamon stick and vanilla or zest in a heavy saucepan. Bring slowly to a simmer, stirring. Cook over the lowest heat for 45 to 50 minutes, stirring every few minutes and scraping the base, until the rice is very soft and the milk has thickened to the texture of pouring custard.
- Sweeten Stir in the sugar and cook for 5 minutes more. Adding sugar earlier slows the softening of the rice.
- Finish Take off the heat, remove the cinnamon and vanilla and stir in the butter until it melts. Pour into a dish or bowls and rest for 1 hour; it thickens as it cools.
- Serve Serve at room temperature or chilled, dusted with ground cinnamon.
Stir often and keep the heat very low. Milk catches easily on the base of the pan.