Hello forum chefs,

I have just taken my rice pudding out of the oven, to find that it has split into curds and whey and consequently looks rather unappetising. Why do these things always happen when there are visitors present? Any ideas why this has happened? I've cooked RP loads of times before and never had this problem.

Thank you,

Puzzled cook

You haven't put anything acidic in it (pineapple, or orange, for example), have you? That would do it. If it was just milk, rice, sugar and nutmeg it shouldn't have happened.

You could always fall back on ice cream for dessert!

Edit: Not literally, of course - that would make an awful mess!

Funny you should mention that - I made an emergency dash to the corner shop for ....icecream!

Oh well, it's a mystery.

Visiting child's mother just turned up half an hour late to collect - no apology, no explanation. Is it just me, or is that plain rude? I'm fuming!

I feel that I'm watching one of those old BBC2 programmes about the past.

When I was little, my grandmother used to make rice puddings. I never heard of them since.

What IS a rice pudding and how do you make one??

Steve

PS My favourite recipe books are 'Floyd on France'. I do a wicked Boeuf Provencal and Lamb en croute !

2 oz pudding rice, 2 tbsp sugar, 1 pint of milk, small amount of grated nutmeg.

Grease an oven dish with butter. Add other ingredients and cook at gas mark 2 (150C) for about 2 hours, stirring after the first 30 minutes

Result - soft creamy yumminess (on every other occasion but today!)

Yum - you've reminded me I haven't made one of these for absolutely ages. Even better with cold single cream !

But I can't see what went wrong with yours, SueHM.
Is it possible there was something on the dish before you started - a trace of lemon or vinegar? (though actually I think it would take more than a trace to curdle milk. Seems most unlikely!)

Mystery solved - I've just poured some more milk from the bag I used and it has gone off - positively yoghurty. The milk must have been just on the turn when I made the pudding - most annoying as I only bought it yesterday!

I was just about to suggest this, but you beat me to it. I used to make my own yogurts and if the milk was anywhere near going off, I knew it when the yoghurts set!!!

I have no idea what pudding rice is - I assume parboiled? But I'll give it a go soon. My grandmother always made it with a brown skin on, which I hated. But then she scooped a portion from the middle for me and put a spoonful of jam and sometimes some cream with it.

Oh the good old days! Black cherry pies, rhubarb crumble, Gooseberry tart, Arctic rolls, New York cheese cake - all home made!

Steve

Pudding rice is a type of short grain rice :-)

crikey, havent had RP in a while, i do love it though with a nice big dollop of jam in the middle

I have no idea what pudding rice is

Yep, short grain is right, as Babybird said.
Maybe something like risotto rice ? arborio ?

SueHM, that was really bad luck! All that anticipation ...

Poor Sue! How very annoying! Can you take the milk back and complain? I hope the rest of the meal turned out well and your guests had a happy evening.

Stevensfo, rice pudding always has a brown skin on when it's cooked in the oven - hence the expression "He couldn't knock the skin off a rice pudding". You can make it in a pressure cooker, when it turns out very like the tinned rice pudding you can buy, i.e. with no skin, but it doesn't taste the same as oven rice pudding.

Yup, gone-off milk would definitely cause it to separate.... I get in the habit of sniffing milk before I ever use it.

If it had been acid, there are things you can do to bring it together again but, with gone-off milk, the compost heap or the bin is the best place.

Incidentally, for what it's worth, nowadays I've gone off the skin on rice pudding (probably something to do with having loads of old skin with dusty long-before-grated nutmeg on the top when mother used to make it) and prefer it cooked on the stove than baked in the oven!

Pudding rice seems very difficult to find in the shops these days...maybe that's why people dont make it any more.

Maybe once I finally get a cooker I'll have a go again - ages since I made one too - if I can find any pudding rice.

They probably just stopped calling it pudding rice. The type of shortgrain rice used for sushi works very nicely in rice pudding....fortunately!

Separated pudding - if I get overenthusiastic about including chopped apple when making rice pudding it sometimes separates slightly. I suspect that adding a little extra butter dotted over the top before baking when using lots of apple helps. But it could be mere superstition.

Favourite spices etc? I love mace in rice pudding, I really think just because I love to look at the little blades of mace and think how wonderful plants are!!!

I was thinking arborio and although my Risotto book had nothing to say on the subject, Nigela Lawson, bless her, has a recipe for "Risotto style rice pudding" using, yes, arborio rice.

Me, I'm a skin on man. Love to scrape round the dish at the end.

You keep your milk in a bag??

You can buy 'pudding rice' or 'short grain rice'. Mmm - mace, what a nice idea. I'll try that next time. I like mace in apricot stuffing, yum yum.

The small guest in question was very enthusiastic about the alternative pudding (icecream/wafers) and told his Mum that he had had a special Chinese pudding!! Thankfully there were no mishaps with the lasagna..

Milk in bags - latest thing at Waitrose - you buy it in bags and it goes in a special jug with a spike that pierces the bag. Its an experiment - I'm keen on the idea because it cuts packaging, but reserving judgement until I've tried it for a few weeks. So far, a few spillages and one gone-off bag..

Maybe I'm odd, but if I'm desperately in need of rice pudding (its a good comfort food) I buy a can, and heat it like baked beans... Else I go buy one of those Mueller Rice 'yoghurts', and zap it in the microwave!

Trouble is, all those sorts of sloppy deserts are far too associated with manky school dinners of my childhood, with icky semolina, and cold rice pudding etcetc. Even now, much as I enjoy the (abovementioned, cheaty) versions of rice pudding now, I have to really be in the mood / hungry for it to appeal at all.

I really fancy rice pudding now too

I like it with cinnamon and sugar, or with some cherries from a jar (it's really hard to find cherries out of a jar here though).

Mmmmmmh tasty

My milkman delivers it fresh

Just a thought, I wonder how many Forumites had rice pud this weekend? I certainly did. It was a bit overcooked but pretty good

I haven't yet - but there should be some pudding rice arriving in the online shopping this evening. Yumyum

Just the thought of rice pudding makes me heave. I was force fed milk puddings as a child.

That's it! I have to go make rice pudding now (well, not right now, or it won't be ready until gone 10pm, but I think we'll have one for tea tomorrow night!)

I have very fond memories of rice pudding as a child, but not any of those other mild puddings. Semolina, anyone? Tappioca??? Always looks like frog spawn, I think!

mom cooks our roast potatoes as normasl, but adds semolina powder to the oil/fat. Makes them extraaaa crunchy. yum. although i hate semolina and tapioca

Oh semolina is lovely. My mum (German) used to make a dessert of semolina dumplings which were poached with Morello cherries in syrup. Mmm Kirschsuppe. Lecker.

Tapioca. Er, yes, frog spawn. Even worse than pearl barley.

Mmmmm....semolina, sago, tapioca, macaroni pudding, baked egg custard, junkets....love 'em all! Any others I've missed?

Has anyone tried rice pudding with rice flakes? It makes a kind of ricey-porridge and it's gorgeous with sultanas and cinammon.

I remember tinned tapioca when I was a kid and it made me 'unwell' (sorry - don't want to create a vivid picture for you at this time in the morning!).

Ambrosia tinned puddings/custard are pretty yummy too but you need to add things like jam or fruit.


(ps I remember 20years ago in Canada the milk came in bags - you just cut the corner and popped it into a specially designed platic jug... very eco)