Recipe: my perfect rice pudding

My recipe here breaks slightly from Delia, who I normally follow fairly strictly. In fact I'd go so far to say it's based on her recipe, but as I've altered ingredients, quantities and cooking times I reckon it's almost my recipe for traditional rice pudding ^_^.

I've tried her method many times in at least 3 different ovens and it always results in disaster, and sticky boiling over moments which are horrendous to clean up. Anyway, I'll show you how to make homemade traditional rice-pudding without the ikky mess, and with all the taste and awesomeness. Divine :D

What will you need?

Kitchen Stuff:
- an oven-proof dish (about 20cm wide by 5cm deep)
- wooden spoon
- fairly large plastic jug
- clingfilm

Ingredients (serves 4-6):
- 110g pudding rice
- 410g condensed milk (one of the Carnation cans is about the right amount)
- 1/2 pint whole milk
- some ground nutmeg for the top

(Prep time 5 minutes, Cooking time about 1 hour)

1 -- preheat your oven

To about 150 oC. It needs to be low, as it'll be cooking for quite a long while.

2 -- pre-cook your rice

Yep. The old way, the rice cooked in the oven, but it was never long enough. I always always ended up with rice pudding which boiled over after the first hour, and left the grains still crunchy in the middle anyway. This will ensure you get all the taste but have them soft aswell. So, measure out your rice into the jug, add water to the jug so it's about half an inch above the rice. Cover the top of the jug with cling film, poke some holes, and put in the microwave for about 10-15 minutes on medium-high. Keep testing, but you want to rice to be almost done (ie almost soft) and hopefully all the water to be gone. Don't worry if it's not - when this happens I tip the rice into a jug and run some water over it to get rid of the starchy residue.

3 -- mix everything together

You can mix in the jug or the dish, it doesn't matter. If you're likely to be messy, I'd use the jug. Add the rice, then both the normal and condensed milk and stir everything up. If it's not in the oven-proof dish then add it now, and tip alittle nutmeg on the surface. Put it in the oven for half an hour.

4 -- come back and stir

After half an hour a skin should have started to form on the top. This will eventually be the best part of your rice pudding, but for now take out the dish and give everything a stir again (dont be afraid to break it up). Add some more nutmeg if you want. Pop it back in the oven. Leave for another half an hour.

5 -- ready?

This time, when you come back, alot of the milk should have reduced, absorbed into the rice. The skin should have formed nicely. If there's still alot of excess milk you can leave it in for another 15 minutes and check again, repeat again if you need to. This is about the time when mine always boiled over - so keep an eye on it to make sure it doesn't. You want the milk to be basically almost gone, and it to be golden and bubbly on top.

6 -- enjoy! ^_^