Kheer....Indian Rice Pudding

I had almost a litre of whole milk to use up before the expiry date......three cups to be more precise. I was thinking about perhaps a bread pudding......there is a Fine Cooking recipe for that I've been wanting to try........or maybe a home made chocolate pudding. Since I was out of chocolate and didn't have a large amount of bread to use up, which is actually an unusual occurrence in this house.....I decided to try an Indian Rice Pudding. I love rice pudding!......and I really love Indian Rice Pudding. I am a big fan of cardamom. So I googled a bit and came up with this recipe to try. I quite liked it and I increased the recipe size to use up all of the 3 cups of milk I had on hand. It was delicious...as expected and I will be trying it again at some point. I was out of pistachio nuts and replaced them with almonds which I did have on hand. The recipe came from this lady originally, but I cannot locate the blog I found it on now. You should have look at the beautiful cakes she makes!

Swati's Rice Pudding

50 g basmati rice or other long grain rice
250ml whole milk
100g white sugar
1/2 tsp ground cardamom, (I used 4 whole green pods)
2 whole cloves
a pinch of saffron threads
pistachio nuts, chopped for garnish

Soak rice in water for 20 minutes. Heat milk and and bring to a gentle boil. Lower heat and simmer for 10 minutes. Drain and discard the water from the rice. Add the drained rice to the simmering milk. Simmer and stir another 10 to 15 minutes while the rice cooks. Add cardamom, cloves, saffron and sugar and continue to simmer and stir for a further 10 to 15 minutes. At this point the milk should have thickened slightly and still be a bit on the runny side. Remove all whole spices. Garnish with chopped pistachio nuts.

You may add in raisins at the end while the pudding is still warm and they will plump up as they soak in the pudding. I found the pudding a little too sweet and will try it again with 20% less sugar.