I’ve had a lot of time to catch up on food magazine reading over the past few weeks as the Northeast has been pounded with FOUR significant snowstorms that have kept us all locked up and out of harm’s way. As luck would have it I had all of the ingredients for this special treat on-hand during the first of these big snow events, which was a blizzard that dropped 31″ of snow on us, and required that we stay put for 3 days until a plow could finally reach us and clear the drive.
Thankfully, I had a freezer full of all sorts of belly warming goodies, but as I’m always loathe to keep too many sweets in the house (lest I eat them all), when it came time to satisfy my sugar tooth I had to roll up my sleeves in the kitchen and get cooking. I’ve always been a fan of rice pudding, though to be honest it was the boozy fruit compote that demanded my attention when I found this recipe in the latest Bon Appetit.
Do yourself a favor if you make this, and double or triple the compote as you WILL want to have extra on-hand to serve up warm, over ice cream, or to swirl through your favorite greek yogurt at breakfast……YUM!
Cheers
Ingredients
for the Boozy Fruit:
- ½ cup light brown sugar
- 2 tablespoons dark rum
- 2 tablespoons orange juice
- ½ cup raisins, dried cherries, or chopped dried apricots
for the Rice Pudding:
- 4½ cups whole milk
- 1 cup arborio or sushi rice
- ½ cup heavy cream
- ½ cup granulated sugar
- 2 cinnamon sticks
- 1 1” piece orange peel
- 1 egg yolk
- Kosher salt
- 1 vanilla bean, split lengthwise
Instructions
for the Boozy Fruit:
- Combine brown sugar, rum, orange juice, and a splash of water in a small saucepan over medium-high heat. Bring to a simmer and cook, stirring occasionally, until sugar is dissolved, about 4 minutes. Stir in dried fruit and cook until liquid is syrupy, about 2 minutes more. Remove from heat and let cool.
for the Rice Pudding:
- Combine milk, rice, cream, sugar, cinnamon sticks, orange peel, and a pinch of salt in a medium saucepan. Scrape in seeds from vanilla bean; add pod. Bring to a rapid simmer, stirring occasionally to ensure mixture doesn’t stick to pan. Reduce heat to medium-low and simmer, stirring occasionally and scraping all the way down to the bottom of the pot to make sure mixture doesn’t stick or scorch, until rice is tender and mixture is thickened, 20–25 minutes. Remove from heat and let sit 5 minutes.
- Discard vanilla bean, cinnamon sticks, and orange peel. Quickly and thoroughly stir in egg yolk until completely incorporated. Keep pudding warm, covered, or let cool, then cover and transfer to the refrigerator to chill completely. Serve warm or chilled, topped with boozy fruit.
- Do Ahead: Rice pudding and boozy fruit can be made up to 2 days ahead. Reheat pudding over medium heat, with a splash of milk or cream.