Risalamande (Danish rice pudding)

Today is December 21st, the start of Jul (Yule), and my wife and I are making risalamande to have for dessert tonight.

Here is my mom's recipe that I grew up with.

Risalamande

1 cup short or medium-grain rice
5 cups whole milk
1/2 cup sugar
1 tsp vanilla extract
1 tsp almond extract
1 cup heavy cream/whipping cream, whipped

Cherry sauce
1 can bing cherries
1/4 cup sugar
1 tbsp cornstarch

In a heavy saucepan add milk and rice. Bring to a boil while stirring, then reduce heat and simmer covered for about 20-25 minutes, stirring occasionally, until most of the milk is absorbed and the rice is tender. Stir in sugar, vanilla & almond extracts. Set aside to cool completely. Whip the cream to firm peaks but not too stiff. Fold whipped cream into cooled rice. Serve in a bowl with cherry sauce over top.

For the cherry sauce, drain and save the juice from the cherries, and add a little water if necessary to make 1 cup of cherry juice. In a small saucepan over medium heat, mix together the cornstarch and sugar and some cherry juice while stirring. Add remaining cherry juice and bring to a boil, stirring constantly. When thickened, add the cherries, remove from heat and let cool. Serve over rice pudding while warm.

I'll come back with a picture this evening.

Ooh..... I grew up on this for Christmas dinner!

Our version used gelatin to set the whipping cream, and had flaked almonds instead of the extract. A whole almond was hidden in one dish in the kitchen, and whoever found the almond in their dish won a prize (usually a box of chocolates). Yum yum yum.

We lost the tradition when we started having Christmas dinner with the Canadian/British side of the family, who wanted pies instead. Pies are tasty, but people make them year round, but nothing says Christmas to me like rice pudding - and it's tastier, too, IMO.

It's odd that rice pudding means Christmas to you, to me growing up in the UK it is invalid and childrens food, it's what you get when you are sick not on special occasions! But saying that I end up eating a lot of it here and it really can vary in quality, the recipe is about what we do but no almond essence instead you want lots of roughly chopped almonds so there is some texture and of course you cannot forget the single whole almond! it is eaten on the 24th after duck with 3 types of potato and picked red cabbage. It also turns up at every Christmas dinner you get forced into attending, I just had one last week where we were 40 people and one almond.. disappointment!

Skandi Rogers wrote:It's odd that rice pudding means Christmas to you, to me growing up in the UK it is invalid and childrens food, it's what you get when you are sick not on special occasions! But saying that I end up eating a lot of it here and it really can vary in quality, the recipe is about what we do but no almond essence instead you want lots of roughly chopped almonds so there is some texture and of course you cannot forget the single whole almond! it is eaten on the 24th after duck with 3 types of potato and picked red cabbage. It also turns up at every Christmas dinner you get forced into attending, I just had one last week where we were 40 people and one almond.. disappointment!

That WOULD be disappointing.

My mom is of mixed up UK descent, so I have tried British style rice pudding. Came into the kitchen one summer weekend age maybe 7 or 8, and was told my mom had made "rice pudding" for breakfast. I was ecstatic! Then was presented with a bowl of soft rice, milk, raisins, and spices. I was unimpressed. And then we proceeded to have that for breakfast for the rest of the week and a few times a year ever since.

I also like the vaguely Eastern European style rice pudding, basically a vanilla custard cooked with rice in it. Also very tasty, also much nicer than the Canadian/British stuff.

Due to lack of preparedness, we didn't have any sweet cherries, so we used a can of sour cherries that we had on hand and just added some extra sugar. Still turned out real nice.