Honorable mentions — Holiday recipe contest: A popular holiday Portuguese dessert

Arroz Doce or rice pudding is a popular Portuguese dessert.

Living in a Portuguese-American household, we always had rice pudding during Christmas and the New Year.

Years ago, my mother, remembering the rice pudding that she had eaten at Hotel Aviz in Lisbon, Portugal, decided to write to Gourmet Magazine to ask them if they could request the recipe.

They did manage to obtain it and then sent it to our mom.

The recipe that I am sharing is my adaptation. I will also make a further adaption if I have left over cooked rice from dinner.

— Louise Carvalho, Waterbury

 

ARROZ DOCE — PORTUGUESE RICE PUDDING

1/2 cup sugar

1 Tablespoon unsalted butter

1 cup short grain rice (River)

1 cinnamon stick

Pinch of salt

lemon rind

2 cups milk

6-8 egg yolks

Place 2 cups of water and a pinch of salt in a saucepan and bring to a boil.

Add rice.

Cook rice according to package directions.

In a separate saucepan heat the milk with the lemon/orange rinds and a cinnamon stick until the milk comes to the boiling point.

Then, add the cooked rice.

Adjust the heat to low.

Stir occasionally until the rice is well cooked and the milk is absorbed into the rice.

Add the sugar and remove from the heat.

Mix together the egg yolks with a few tablespoons of the heated milk/rice mixture. (This tempers the eggs so that they do not scramble when added to the saucepan of heated milk/rice.)

Add the butter.

While briskly stirring, add the egg yolk mixture to the heated milk/rice mixture.

Place the mixture over low heat, stirring continuously, until the egg yolks in the mixture are cooked through.

Do not let the mixture boil.

Remove from the heat and pour into large serving platters.

Allow to cool.

Sprinkle and decorate with cinnamon.

You can be decorative with the cinnamon pinching a bit between your fingers and dusting the top with the cinnamon in a criss cross or other pattern.