Author Notes: The idea for this recipe comes from a 19th century dessert called Huntington pudding, which has a lemony rice pudding base, thickened with egg yolks, and a lemon meringue cap. I love how the airy meringue lightens the dense rice pudding as you eat it. So with this old-fashioned dessert in mind, I decided to maintain a similar design but change the flavors and textures. I made an almond-flavored rice pudding base, because I love almond and lemon together, and kept the base loose with lots of milk. And I topped this with a lemony meringue, which, after a little toasting in the oven, is a real showstopper. If you don’t eat this pudding right away, it’s also good cold, but don’t let it sit in the fridge for more than a day or two or the meringue gets weird. —Amanda Hesser
Serves: 6
Ingredients
-
3/4
cup jasmine or other long-grain white rice
-
1
quart whole milk
-
1
cinnamon stick
-
3
tablespoons raw sugar
-
1/4
teaspoon salt
-
1/4
teaspoon almond extract
-
2
tablespoons grated lemon zest
-
3
egg whites
-
1/3
cup sugar
-
2 1/2
tablespoons lemon juice
Directions
- Combine the rice, milk, cinnamon, sugar and salt in a medium saucepan. Bring to a boil, then reduce the heat and simmer, stirring occasionally, until the rice is just tender (but not at all mushy), about 12 minutes. Remove from the heat and stir in the almond extract and lemon zest. Pour into an 8 x 8 inch baking dish.
- Using a mixer fitted with a whisk, beat the egg whites with a pinch of salt until they hold soft peaks. Slowly add the sugar and whisk until the whites form firm peaks. Sprinkle in the lemon juice a little at a time and continue beating until the peaks are firm and glossy.
- Heat the broiler. Spread the meringue on top of the rice pudding, using a spatula to nudge it to the edge of the baking dish. Place under the broiler to toast the meringue, about 1 minute. Don’t take your eyes off of it — it burns quickly!
1 of 19
2 of 19
3 of 19
Photo by Food52
Bustling about — felt strange not to be cooking with Merrill.
4 of 19
Photo by Food52
Mirror, mirror on the wall, who's the fairest egg of all?
5 of 19
Photo by Food52
I love how the light reflected on the stream of milk.
6 of 19
Photo by Food52
And then how this stream of milk twisted like licorice. But back to the recipe… here, I poured milk into the rice, raw sugar, lemon zest and cinnamon.
7 of 19
Photo by Food52
As the mixture heats, it begins foaming on the edge.
8 of 19
Photo by Food52
My cheat sheet.
9 of 19
Photo by Food52
The rice was almost done — as you can see the mixture is a little soupy and the rice grains haven't broken down.
10 of 19
Photo by Food52
After stirring in the almond extract, I poured the rice pudding into a copper pan that I planned to serve it in.
11 of 19
Photo by Food52
A-ha! Merrill and I couldn't cook separately for long! She stepped in to slowly add sugar and lemon juice while I whisked the egg whites — beating by hand is a work-out. Most normal people…
12 of 19
Photo by Food52
You can see the meringue getting shiny here.
13 of 19
Photo by Food52
Merrill tests it.
14 of 19
Photo by Food52
I plopped it on top of the pudding, then spread it out evenly-ish before broiling.
15 of 19
Photo by Food52
This is what happens when you start chatting while your rice pudding is under the broiler. No crying over burnt meringue — I just scraped it off and made some more.
16 of 19
Photo by Food52
This time I watched it like a hawk.
17 of 19
Photo by Food52
There you go — toasted meringue.
18 of 19
Photo by Food52
Here you can see the two layers — pudding topped with meringue!
19 of 19
Photo by Food52