Made with arborio rice and sweet pastry, I immediately thought of my little stock of black rice left in my pantry. I had thought of making risotto ever since I heard that black rice works out well in that dish. But rice pudding in a tart sounded irresistible! Particularly black rice.
Ready for the oven |
I made the dough for the sweet pastry and as they rested in the fridge, I went ahead with the rice pudding. So far I have only made Indian style rice pudding that is called kheer. Made with thickened milk, the flavourings are usually saffron or cardamom. But in this case I first cooked 100 grams of rice in a pressure cooker along with the bit of water that was used to soak the rice. Black rice has a nutty texture and the cooking period is a little longer than regular rice.
The other additions to the pudding apart from milk and sugar were: cream, one scraped vanilla bean, zest of one lemon and one crushed cardamom.
The pastry was rolled out and baked blind. After the shells had cooled down, I spread a tablespoon of apricot jam on the base of the shell. Then I filled them up with the pudding and baked them at 180C for about 25 minutes. By that time a crust had formed on top of the tarts and they looked done.
I couldn't resist taking this picture midway through the baking as the pudding bubbled away in the oven.
The crust on top of the filling. |
This dish was a spur of the moment thing. I had seen rice pudding tarts before but had never made any. The leaf-shaped moulds did it and the twist with black rice was worth it. Every bite was delightful with a hint of vanilla, the lemony zing and cardamom and most of all the fragrance of the rice itself.