Arroz con Leche

Everyone loves rice pudding. No, I’m serious. Literally everyone likes rice pudding. There is not a single culture that produces rice that doesn’t have some version of this dessert. Many cultures who have no local rice production at all also cherish their rice pudding dishes. From the final dish Gautama Buddha ate before gaining enlightenment to the buttered Рисовая каша of Russian breakfast, rice pudding is worldwide.

In America, we grew up with two versions, baked and boiled, and both are based more or less on the riz au lait of France. A substantial, rice-forward dish, sometimes studded with raisins, but always resembling boiled rice made with milk instead of water.

In Spain, and much of the Spanish-speaking world, the rice pudding is a different beast entirely. Arroz con leche is usually much more akin to the Indian kheer or the Iranian firni; a sticky, soupy, porridge. In Asturias, they add a special twist; a layer of caramelized sugar, similar to a crème brûlée.

Quality Ingredients

As I have said before, and will certainly say again, this is a recipe in which there are very few ingredients, so the quality of those ingredients is paramount! For proper Asturian (and more generally Spanish) arroz con leche, it is absolutely imperative that you have a short grain rice. It doesn’t matter if it’s British pudding rice or Japanese sushi rice. Likewise, you can use Italian arborio, or Spanish bomba. All that matters is that it is a short-grain, sticky rice.

Likewise, you need fresh, whole milk. Yes, you need full fat milk. You will be essentially making sweetened condensed milk here, so you need really good fatty milk to start with. How fresh is entirely up to you. You can certainly make a very respectable arroz con leche with UHT milk, but a regular pasteurized milk will make a better product, owing to the denaturing of the proteins in the UHT process.

Ingredients

• 200 g Short-grain rice. Sushi, Bomba, Arborio, Pudding – the exact type is less important. But it must be short-grain.
• 2 l whole milk. Not UHT if you can help it.
• 1 pinch salt.
• 200 g table sugar. divided in half.
• 10 g cinnamon, ground.

Instructions

1. Measure your milk into a large pot and warm over medium heat until the milk begins to form a skin
2. Add 100 grams of the sugar and stir to dissolve. A whisk will make short work of this step. Allow the milk to reheat and begin forming a skin again.
3. Add your rice and with a flat bottomed wooden (or other) spoon, stir frequently while the milk comes back up to temperature. If you do not stir often, you will get both clumps of rice that cook together and rice stuck to the bottom of the pot, risking a burnt taste later if you allow them to stay. Be vigilant.
4. The rice will now need to simmer, barely, for somewhere between two and two and one half hours. Every 15 or 20 minutes you need to give it a stir with your wooden spoon, to keep it from sticking.
5. At several points during this process you will need to lower the heat to keep the thickening pudding from sputtering. For instance, on my stove this process begins at “6” and ends at “2” on the dial.
6. When the pudding has become a thick, sticky pudding, turn off the heat, remove the pot to a cold countertop or rack and let cool to room temperature.
7. Once cooled, cover the top of the pudding with plastic wrap, pushing it right down into constant contact with the top of the pudding, to avoid a chewy layer being formed as you cool it further. Transfer the pot to the refrigerator and cool overnight.
8. To serve this pudding, you need to put it in individual bowls and smooth out the top, and then allow them to come up to room temperature. (20-30 minutes before you wish to serve them.)
9. Gently pat off any moisture on the tops of the puddings with a towel.
10. Combine the remaining sugar and the cinnamon and sprinkle generously over the top of the individual pudding. Dump off any excess (perhaps onto the next pudding to be coated).
11. With a kitchen torch held a decent distance from the top of the pudding, slowly rotate around the bowl while moving the torch closer slowly. Keep the torch moving to keep from burning one area. Once it gets closer, you’ll see the sugar start to liquefy and form little droplets on the surface.
12. As you continue cooking the sugar, you’ll see (and smell) the sugar begin to cook and smoke. Keep the flame moving so that it isn’t focused on any one spot for too long. Once you have a nice solid golden glaze on top, stop. You can always add more heat if there’s an underdone spot, but you can’t uncook it, so err on the side of caution.
13. Serve immediately.

Notes

• If you have a caramelizing iron (quemador in Spanish), you will need to heat it prior to the operation, and you will need to move quickly to get several puddings caramelized before the iron cools too much. If you have an electric one (fancy you!) this is, of course, not a problem.