RICE PUDDING FLAVOURED WITH MASTIC, GINGER AND PERFUMED WITH ROSE WATER

(English version is below. Türkçe tarif için burayi tiklayin)

(RIZ BI HALEEB)

This is not just rice pudding! It is something else! Because it is flavored with rose water, mastic and ginger! It is an awesome combo; really something special!

In Turkey, rice pudding is called sütlaç and it is one of the most common deserts of the Turkish kitchen. However, compared to the recipe I post now, it is much simpler in taste: it only consists of milk, rice and sugar. This recipe I found in one of the magazines that I get home monthly. According to the magazine, it is called “Riz bi Halebi” (meaning rice pudding from Aleppo). 

From now on, I think I’ll prepare the rice pudding this way; because I think it is much more gastronomical this way.

I’m posting the original recipe; however I changed the recipe a bit:

#1  I didn’t have any cardamom seeds at home, so I skipped this one.

#2 I didn’t know what they meant with ginger, in any case I used the ginger powder that I had at home instead of fresh ginger. F you prefer to use fresh ginger, I think you can chop it real fine so that it your desert is more homogeneous.  

#3 I didn’t have mastic, so I used the mastic jam that I had at home. This way I also added less sugar as given in the recipe.

#4 I also don’t like orange peel at all, so I just replaced it two spoons of orange juice instead. Though I doubt it added anything to the taste J

#5 Rose water is something that is quite strong in taste. My personal opinion is that two drops of rose water should be fine; as I noticed that it dominated the whole taste!

 #6 I was afraid that the pudding will be too liquid so I added a few spoons of rice flour as well. But I don’t think it is necessary as such. It depends on how liquid or thick you like your rice pudding!  

Hope you will enjoy this recipe guys!

Ingredients (serves 6):

Half a glass of rice

5 glasses of milk

4 seeds of cardamom (see the comment nr 1 above in italic)

2 tea spoons of ginger (see the comment nr 2 above in italic)

A piece of mastic, crushed (see the comment nr 3 above in italic)

6 spoons of sugar (see the comment nr 3 above in italic)

Peel of 1 orange, grated (see the comment nr 4 above in italic)

1 spoon of rose water (see the comment nr 5 above in italic)

*** 2 – 3 spoons of rice flour (see the comment nr 6 above in italic)

Method:

1. Take the milk, the rice, the mastic, the ginger, the cardamom in a pot and cook until the rice is soft.
2. Add the sugar, the grated orange peel and the rose water and mix.
3. Share out to the cups or bowls.
4. Decorate as you wish (I decorated with walnuts)

Yummy ending!