Rice Pudding of Modena

Lynne Rossetto Kasper's The Splendid Table: Recipes from Emilia-Romagna, the Heartland of Northern Italian Food is another long time favorite. I have a special fondness for some of the more old fashioned recipes like A Fare Dieci Piatti di Maccheroni Romaneschi or Rosewater Maccheroni Romanesca which I highly recommend for a romantically inclined repast. Another favorite is her recipe for Torta Barrozi, an exceptionally moist chocolate almond torte. I will most definitely discuss the Torta Barrozi and my variations in a later post. Although I have been cooking from this book for several years, I only recently gave a hand to Torta di Riso or Modena Rice Pudding.

This is a very simple recipe and it is easily modified.

Kasper begins by cooking 1 cup of arborio rice in 3 & 1/2 cups milk. Cook as one would regular rice, albeit cautiously, for approximately 20 to 25 minutes until it is done, but maybe just a bit al-dente. Then stir in one cup of sugar and allow to cool.

Lightly whisk five large eggs, and stir into the rice mixture with a lemon's worth of zest. She suggests you also add 1/4 cup finely diced candied citron or 3/4 cup sliced blanched and toasted almonds.

Pour the mixture into a buttered spring form pan and bake for approximately one hour at 350 f until a knife inserted two inches from the edge comes out clean.

The variations on this are many. As I am partial to zest of all kinds, I like to add the zest of one lemon and the zest of an orange. I spend a lot of time in Lebanese grocery stores where I have access to all kinds of candied fruit. I am especially fond of candied Seville orange which I prefer to the candied citron. It is also a nice touch to toast slivered almonds and lay them flat on the bottom of the spring form pan rather than mixing them with the rest of the ingredients. They provide a nice 'icing' for the pudding.

The layer of lightly browned almonds is particularly dramatic when you use different kinds of rice in this pudding. For example, brown rice, once you get over it's health food associations, actually has a very nice and nutty flavor and you can, on occasion, even find an arborio variety or other short grain types. Another option, that is quite dramatic is to use the short-grain purplish black variety which you can find in some Asian grocery stores. Make sure you take the time to stand over this version as you cook the rice so you can observe the wonderful purple swirls that quickly penetrate the milk. If you place the slivered almonds on the bottom of the pan for this version the end result is an exquisite visual contrast. Next on the list of variations is to use coconut milk rather than cattle milk, but I have not tried this version yet. I'll post an addendum as soon as I give it a try.