Kheer, the traditional rice pudding is thoroughly enjoyed not only all over India, South East Asia, but closer to home, in New York City too. NYC boasts an upscale rice pudding Restaurant, known as Rice To Riches. When I first heard about a western version of traditional Indian Kheer, my interests perked up and I put it on my list of restaurants to be visited.The many flavours introduced in Rice to Riches encompass Cinnamon, Chocolate, and Valentine to name a few. It shows the popularity of rice pudding across nations and culture as it is a widely accepted and adapted rice dessert. Here is a link to their FB page https://www.facebook.com/pages/Rice-to-Riches/115786161777086
Here, I present the traditional way of Indian Rice Pudding, or Kheer. There is something comforting when you mix rice, sugar, and milk, and garnish it with cardamom, saffron, and nuts of your choice. The texture could be creamy and thick or a bit liquidy. It depends on what you are eating it with. The way Rice and Riches sells it, it is a creamy texture, which is perfect to eat it solo. If you are eating this as a part of meal with Puri/Roti you want it a little liquidy. Traditionally this dish can be consumed warm, cold or chilled. I prefer the cold/chilled version. As a custom in Gujarat, people often make this on the full moon night in the autumn season ( Sharad) in October-November, the coolest nights. People will cook kheer, put in the terrace to chill by the moonlight, sing songs, play dandiya and enjoy this Kheer with friends and family.
This is a simpler, easier and less time consuming recipe. As a result, this recipe is kid friendly. Shortly, a group of kids are going to assist their parents and use this recipe to cook kheer and serve in a community kitchen project that they are part of. The recipe has been modified, based on Mrs. Dalal’s version. In my opinion, this probably could be one of the oldest Indian Desserts, whose reference is found in many mythological and religious texts, as also its two main ingredients , rice milk and sugar are farm related items. However the recipe detailed below does make use of sweetened condensed milk.
Recipe Makes 3 cups and serves 3 /4 people
Cooking time 15 min
Preparation 10 min
Ingredients
- 3 cups of whole milk
- 1 cup cooked rice (preferably pressure cooked) or 1/3 cup raw rice cooked with two times water
- 1/2 tsp cardamom powder
- 3 tbsp sugar
- 1/3 cup sweetened condensed milk( Nestle Carnation Brand)
- saffron strands 4-5
- 1 tbsp water
Method
- How to cook rice: Wash and rinse 1/2 cup of uncooked rice three times in plenty of water, draining water every time. . Soak the rice for half an hour in 1 1/2 cups of water. Cook the rice in pressure cooker to four whistles on a medium flame. Alternatively, put rice in a rice cooker and cook. Cool and remove one cup of cooked rice for kheer.
- In a deep pan( non-stick preferable), mix milk condensed sweetened milk, and cooked rice and put it to boil on a medium high flame.. Once it boils over, reduce it to medium. add sugar and cook for a total of 15 min.. Remember to stir the kheer every 2-3 min.
- Remove from flame, add cardamom powder.
- Heat 1 tbsp water in microwave. Add saffron, 6-7 strands to the water, mix it and add it to the kheer pudding.
- You can serve this warm, or cool or chilled.
Tips
If you like the kheer, extremely thick and creamy like a pudding, use 2 1/2 cups of milk.
You can garnish it with some shelled pistachio, raisins also for a nut fruit flavor
Instinct Factor
While cooking rice, the softer the better! Overcooking rice helps over here in creating a creamy texture.
If you like a pudding texture which is thick and creamy, reduce the milk to 2 cups.
As the kheer rice pudding cools down, it becomes thicker in texture, as rice absorbs milk. So what you see when you remove from flame to what to you see when it is chilled, the texture would have changed a bit.
Sugar content needs to be adjusted based on the sweetness of the condensed milk, as non Nestle brand will have a different sweetness level to it.
Feel Factor
Comforting dessert for young and old, made of rice and milk that is extremely easy to make, can be garnished with toppings of your choice of nuts, to innovative toppings of chocolate, and cinnamon to name a few! Slurping this rice pudding is simply pure JOY for some! It is pretty heavy to digest, and heavy on calories, so be prepared to take a nap after consuming a bowl of this!!
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