Rice Pudding, Three Ways

A few weeks ago, I was reading the June/July issue of Donna Hay Magazine which worked out perfectly. Since it's an Australian magazine, and our seasons are opposite, it's fine that the issues take longer to arrive here and June and July were long gone. By the time I read it, our weather had cooled off some, and I was ready to think about more wintery dishes. There were lots of lovely things made with root vegetables in one story, and another story about a dinner party around a roaring fire that ended with chocolate whisky truffles. I'll get back to those soon enough, but it was the rice puddings that I had to try first. That's such a basic, comfort food kind of dish, and why I'd never made it I don't know. What made me finally want to do it was the fact that there wasn't just one flavor presented in the story. There were eight, yes eight, versions from which to choose. And, I got a little excited when one of the eight was rhubarb and creme fraiche because I had cooked some extra rhubarb and stored it in the freezer earlier in the year. So, that one was for sure, and really, I wanted to try all of the other seven, but I narrowed it down to three. Once the basic rice pudding recipe was made, altering it or adding different toppings was easy enough. I scooped the plain pudding into ramekins, topped some with stewed rhubarb and creme fraiche, others with burnt caramel, and the remaining pudding was flavored with orange zest and topped with melted chocolate.

For the basic rice pudding, all that's required is combining arborio rice, whole milk, sugar, and the seeds and pod of one vanilla bean in a saucepan and bringing it to a boil. The heat was reduced, the pan was covered, and the rice simmered while being stirred occasionally for about 30 minutes. Since I'd already cooked some rhubarb and had it in the freezer, I just let it come to room temperature and spooned it over some rice pudding in ramekins. That was topped with creme fraiche. For both the burnt caramel and chocolate orange versions, some cream was to be added to the basic rice pudding first. Then, sugar was melted in a small saucepan, and the pan was swirled until the sugar became an amber caramel. It was drizzled over the rice pudding just before serving. Last, some orange zest was stirred into the remaining rice pudding, and dark chocolate was melted to top it.

The rhubarb was fruity and tangy with the vanilla rice pudding, but a spoonful of any fruit preserves would be great too. The orange zest paired well with the swirl of chocolate which was a good contrast to the vanilla pudding. Trying all three was a lot of fun and rice pudding could be gussied in many, many ways, but my favorite of all was the burnt caramel topping. It went perfectly with the simple, basic, vanilla rice pudding which is pretty delicious even left plain.

Pistachio Tart with Strawberries and Rhubarb

I wasn't sure if anyone grew rhubarb in central Texas. For the last couple of years when I was looking for it, I never saw any at our farmers' markets. Some people even told me that rhubarb is more common in the north than it is in the south. Then, all of sudden this spring, I started hearing rumors of locally grown rhubarb being available at markets and farm stands. I stopped by the farm stand at Boggy Creek Farm one morning, and they indeed had freshly cut rhubarb. It wasn't as big or as red as the stalks I see in the grocery store, but it was grown with no chemicals right here in Austin, so I was proud to bring it home. I had a mash-up of a plan in mind for it. In Martha Stewart's Baking Handbook, there were ideas from two different tarts that I wanted to combine into one dessert. The rhubarb tart recipe in the book suggests cooking big pieces of rhubarb in a sugar syrup with a vanilla bean and beet wedges. The beet wedges give the syrup and the rhubarb more red color. Once the rhubarb was tender, it was removed, and the syrup was reduced to a thick glaze. The other tart from the book was made with a pistachio crust, was filled with a creme fraiche and whipped cream mixture, and was topped with berries and whole pistachios. I wanted both.

I made the pistachio dough as instructed by finely grinding shelled pistachios and adding them to butter mixed with confectioners' sugar. Egg yolks were added to that followed by flour, salt, and a little cream. The dough was soft and slightly sticky, so it was necessary to chill it before rolling. Then, rather than making individual tartlets as shown in the book, I made one rectangular tart. There was extra dough, so I did make a few tartlets as well to freeze and use another time. The tart crust was blind baked with pie weights and then allowed to cool. Going back to the rhubarb tart in the book, I cooked the cut pieces of rhubarb as suggested with sugar, water, a vanilla bean, and one beet cut into wedges. Since my rhubarb was more green than red, it required a little extra cooking time to become tender and sweet. Then, it was removed and allowed to dry on paper towels. The sugar syrup was strained and then poured into a clean pan to reduce until thick. One more flip back to the pistachio tarts to make the filling which was a mix of creme fraiche, cream, and sugar. That was spread in the cooled crust and then topped with halved strawberries, whole pistachios, the drained rhubarb, and last was drizzled with the cooled red, sugar syrup glaze.

The glaze was bright red from the beet, full of vanilla flavor, and was delightful. It was so pretty, I wanted to boil it to a higher temperature so I could turn it into lollipops. The pistachio crust was a winner too. It was easy to shape it in the tart pan, and the faint green tint contrasted well with the filling and toppings. I had no uncertainty about the creme fraiche and whipped cream layer under the strawberries and rhubarb, and it was tangy and rich as it should be. So, this mix of two tarts made one pleasing dessert.

Strawberry-Rhubard Sorbet and Vanilla Ice Cream with Rhubarb-Red Wine Compote

It’s time for dessert. After tapas and paella, dessert was, well, not exactly Spanish. I wanted to make use of spring-time strawberries and rhubarb and turning them into something frozen seemed right. Since a frozen dessert would be made well in advance, that meant I could put together a few components and nothing would require last-minute attention. When I read The Perfect Scoop, I was inspired by the suggested pairings of sorbets or granitas with ice creams and sauces. I dreamt up a vision of fruity strawberry-rhubarb sorbet served next to a sinfully rich scoop of vanilla ice cream, and I found those recipes in that book. Following the strawberry-rhubarb sorbet recipe, there’s a note about serving it with a red wine-poached rhubarb compote which sounded perfect. Sorbet, ice cream, and compote was a good start, but I thought a nutty, crunchy item would make it complete. For that, I turned to Martha Stewart's Cookies and chose the lacy nut cookie. I had a plan, but I had no idea how to best present those items on a dessert plate. I should probably read a book on plating and presentation.

Each part of this dessert was very easy to prepare. For the sorbet, rhubarb was chopped and cooked with sugar and water until tender. That was pureed with strawberries, chilled, and churned into sorbet in my ice cream maker. The next day, I made the custard for ice cream with whole milk, sugar, cream, a vanilla bean, six egg yolks, and vanilla extract. I’ve tried a few different recipes for vanilla ice cream, and I can now gauge how delicious the result will be based on the number of egg yolks used. Six is a lovely number of egg yolks for vanilla ice cream, and it was very delicious. The compote was a simple mix of chopped rhubarb, red wine, sugar, honey, a cinnamon stick, and ground cloves. That combination was simmered until the rhubarb was cooked and the sauce reduced, and then I stored it in the refrigerator. Before serving, I brought the compote back to room temperature. The last item was the cookie. The dough was made from mostly butter but also confectioners’ sugar, corn syrup, bread flour, and chopped pecans. Once mixed, it was rolled into a log, wrapped in parchment paper, and chilled. Pieces were sliced from the dough log and baked on silpat-lined sheet pans. I quickly learned that these cookies spread even more than you would think. The dough log I created was a little big, and I ended up cutting each slice in half before baking. The shape of the dough doesn’t matter so much because it spreads into a circle regardless while baking. The cookies baked into lacy and somewhat fragile wafers of buttery crunch.

I ended up with just what I wanted for flavors, textures, fruit, and nuts, but I had no idea how to make it look nice on a plate. Should I have put the compote on the bottom, drizzled it on top, or placed it to the side? What about the cookie? I couldn’t decide how to position it either. It could have been the platform on which everything else sat, or it could have rested on top like a lacy veil over the frozen scoops, or it could have sat in a more vertical pose. I played with the plating and snapped the photos seen here well before dinner time. Then, when it was time for dessert, my final plating decision was to set out a buffet of sorts and invite everyone to help themselves. Problem solved.

Saffron Panna Cotta with Rhubarb Marmellata

Last Tuesday, I was reading a post on Cooked Books when I had to stop everything. You see, Rebecca mentioned that there’s a recipe archive on Babbo’s web site. Well, that set off a flurry of clicks, and I couldn’t get my printer flicked on fast enough. Babbo’s recipes are right there, ordered alphabetically, free for all. I don’t know how often the archive is updated or how complete it is or isn’t, but I quickly found several recipes to stack on top of my to-cook pile. The first of those was this panna cotta with rhubarb from Gina DePalma.

Part two of this story is that I had never before in my life cooked rhubarb. I have no excuse either, so it is clearly my Mom’s fault. She never cooked rhubarb that I remember, so I had no history with it at home. I’ve eaten it but never cooked it or had it at home. I had no idea what I was missing. It’s so easy, and it just makes a nice, thick sauce all by itself. And, now there’s sure to be rhubarb in my kitchen each time it’s in season. For this marmellata, it was chopped in one-quarter inch thick slices and cooked until soft with sugar and the scrapings of a vanilla bean. That was allowed to cool. For the panna cotta, gelatin sheets were softened while cream, sugar, lemon zest, and saffron threads were brought to a boil in a saucepan. That was left to steep for 10 minutes before the gelatin sheets were squeezed and added. Once the gelatin dissolved, the mixture was poured through a sieve, milk was added, and this was poured into ramekins. The ramekins were chilled until set.

To serve, the panna cotta was gracefully turned out of the ramekins, and the rhubarb marmellata was spooned on top. In reality, as I plopped the first serving out of its ramekin, it of course fell apart and broke into blobs on the plate. I had to try two more times before getting a photogenic one. All of this meant that we ended up with three desserts on plates for two people, and we didn’t mind that at all. I was feeling very full after dessert but happily so. I really love the unique flavor of saffron and with the lemon zest, the panna cotta was divine. The rhubarb topping which was thickened just enough all on its own, with its sweet and tart character and underlying vanilla, was a perfect match.