Rice pudding

I haven't had rice pudding since I was a little girl, when my mother used to make it sometimes. It was always a great favourite in my family. Most Japanese people find the very idea of rice pudding strange, and when I looked it up I discovered that there were rice puddings in almost every cultures except Japanese and Korean, even though both are rice-eating countries. In Japan and Korea rice is made into desserts in other ways, but not as rice pudding.

The Man is unusual (for a Japanese person) in that he likes rice pudding, so I decided to make some for him. I used Japanese rice, because that's practically the only rice you can get here. It's REALLY hard to find long-grained rices here, which is extremely annoying when you want to make any dish that is not Japanese and which includes rice. Japanese rice is very glutinous, and sometimes you don't WANT glutinous.

So I made rice pudding using, in the end and after much Internet searching, a recipe from Edmond's Cookbook, because if any recipe is going to work it will be one from Edmond's Cookbook. Edmond's Cookbook only has recipes that work. It is a very old cookbook.

It didn't work, of course, but that was not the fault of Edmond's Cookbook. It was the fault of the very sticky, glutinous rice I used. The cookbook said how much rice and milk to use, but didn't say which kind of rice. I added quite a lot more milk because I knew that most rice sold in NZ is not so sticky, but I did not add enough. What I ended up with was not rice pudding, but rice brick. When it was warm it was still edible, but when it cooled it was pretty well solid.

I did not offer any to The Man. I knew he would not be impressed. When he thinks of rice pudding he thinks of creamy, soft, heavenly rice pudding, like the sort you get in Turkey (where he first had it). He does not think of a glob of solidified sticky rice.

I was so frustrated with this experience I wanted to throw my rice pudding at the wall. I didn't, though. If I threw it at the wall, it would stay there forever, and I do not want to be reminded of my mistake.

But at least I have some idea of what to do next time. Next time, I will use already cooked rice, and maybe try washing it first to get rid of some of the starch. And I will boil, not bake it, so I can add more milk if necessary while it's cooking.

It might even be easier than the way I did it the first time.

What's your favourite rice pudding recipe?