It’s for you, mama, woman with the many errands to run, messes left to clean, bellies to feed, work that is never ending… feed your belly, be full of life’s little pleasures now and then. You want them to be happy, don’t you?– Then begin with your little time out during the day to enjoy a bowl of mamas’ rice so you can give them what they need besides a day of work well-done– time to let your hair down, your happiness flowing through them…
Mamas’ Rice ~
~ Skirt in the Kitchen ~
In a rice cooker, begin with 3 scant cups of white rice; pour in 15 ounces of sweet coconut milk, 1/4 cup dark raisins, 1/4 cup chopped dates, and 1/4 cup chopped dried figs. Stir together after adding 1 teaspoon roasted cinnamon, freshly grated nutmeg, 1 tablespoon salted butter, 1 tablespoon dark rum and 1 teaspoon vanilla extract. Cook in the rice cooker as you would normally, regular white rice…
In the meantime, toast over the stove flame finely chopped pecans, then set aside.
When time is up on the rice cooker, stir. You will find that it is undercooked. It’s what you want.
With a spatula, scrape out the rice, scraping it well from the pan that fits into the rice cooker, all the juices and sweet flavorings… pour into a heated Dutch oven, a heavy pot over the stove, and add warmed in a separate saucepan– 1 cup of half-n-half milk. Turn on the lowest heat under the Dutch oven. Stir the milk in and cover the pot with its lid.
Do not abandon it– Take the lid off and stir it periodically, then warm up 1 more cup of half-n-half milk; add, stirring once again, then put the lid back on the Dutch oven.
Now for the third cup of milk to be added when the rice needs more milk, more liquid substance, this time, pour in heated whole milk, not half-n-half… but, first,
take a vanilla bean and scrape it out, then put the pod into the whole milk and pour all of it into the rice– vanilla bean and all…
Cooking this rice pudding slowly over the lowest flame under a heavy pot will give you the creamiest rice pudding; and it will be thick when the cooking has been completed. This will take a long time to cook, but it is a comfort food to have once in a big while, so be patient.
For the fourth cup of milk, no longer half-n-half– but whole milk… when rice pudding is in need of more warm milk to continue slow-cooking the rice, go ahead and do so… then the fifth cup, the final one needed for your rice to be soft, creamy, and full of sweet coconut/rum flavor with cinnamon, nutmeg– long on the stove that you cannot achieve cooked much sooner…
Still let the rice cook after that fifth cup of milk, then take it off the burner to let it cool just slightly but still warm. Pour 1 more tablespoon of dark rum, and 1 more teaspoon of vanilla extract into the pot of pudding and stir it…
Drizzle more dark rum over the bowl of rice pudding, more cinnamon if you choose to do so, and the toasted pecans you had reserved… enjoy.
Relax, mama ~!
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