Ground Rice Pudding

I'm sharing an Indian dessert today, if you couldn't tell by the blog post title. I quite enjoy going to this particular Indian buffet near my house (Cinnamon) and a really great part of the experience is finishing off the meal with some gulab jamun, which are little round dough balls that are fried and then soaked in a sweet syrup, and kheer, which is a rice pudding. My Indian cookbook didn't have a kheer recipe but it did have a ground rice pudding recipe so I decided to make that.

Ingredients [serves 4]:
1/2 cup basmati rice
2 cardamom pods
2 cups milk
3 tablespoons sugar
2 teaspoons honey
+pinch of salt (optional)

Start by grinding the rice in a food processor for just a few seconds. You want to just barely grind the rice so you have a mixture of sizes of grains.

In a saucepan, add rice and half of the milk (1 cup) and cardamom pods and place over a medium heat until it boils.

Once the milk is boiling (be careful so that it doesn't boil over), add in the remaining milk (1 cup) and stir continuously for about 10 minutes until thickened.

You'll know the milk is thickened enough when it coats the back of a spoon and you can draw a clean line through it.

At this point, add in the sugar and honey (and salt, if you want) and stir to dissolve. Cook this for about 2 minutes, just to ensure the sugar is completely incorporated.

Pour the finished pudding into a vessel of your choice and allow to cool for a few minutes before refrigerating. Refrigerate for at least 2 hours or until completely chilled.

Serve cold. This rice pudding is cool, creamy, and has a lovely texture and flavor. Enjoy!

Here's the recipe page: