Rice Pudding

For most Swedes rice pudding is something that you eat for Christmas. In December, you can even find it in lunch restaurants, paired with ham sandwich. In our house, it´s traditional to eat it on the night of the 23rd, when the Christmas ham has been cooked and is ready for a tasting. One year it tasted so good we finished the entire ham and had to make a new one for Christmas Eve! Personally, I think rice pudding is the most wonderful comfort food imaginable, and I make it often. Many of my friends think it is messy to make (you boil rice with milk and it tends to boil over if you so much as look in another direction, which makes it feel as if it takes ages) and prefer to buy it ready-made (not at all as good) from the store, but I have a magic recipe, and I will now share it with you. I found it in "Bonniers Nya Kokbok" by Britt Sandquist-Bolin and it is called Vera´s Nice Christmas Pudding (= Veras fina julgröt).

Cook 200 ml glutinous rice with 800 ml water, 1 tablespoon sugar, and 1 teaspoon salt. Let it cook very slowly, it should just seethe for about 45 minutes. When it is done, whip 250 ml whipping cream to a hard foam, and stir it into the hot rice. Let it to sit for ten minutes or so before you serve it.

I have done a calorie count, and using cream instead of milk does not make the pudding any fatter, rather the opposite, actually, as you are using such a small amount compared to using milk. The consistency is much lighter this way, and the taste - well, it´s just rice and dairy, how different can it be? The home-made versions are all good, but this one is so much easier on the nerves. Unless you manage to burn the rice, you simply can´t fail. 

Traditionally, at Christmas, we have it with cinnamon, sugar, and milk. I prefer my milk in a glass, and apple sauce on the pudding, but to each his own. Berries of any kind is good, but I don´t mind serving it with fried spicy sausage and onion, which may be treading a bit on the wild side for most. But I guess that shows how much I love it!

I really recommend mixing cold pudding with fried leek or onion, fried mushrooms and an egg, bake it in the oven to a nice brown and serve with bacon. Yum! Actually, some grated cheese probably would be nice in the mix, must try that next time...

Spätzle

It may not have been my brightest idea, to start two new blogs at the time of year when I am the most tired, but who says I must post every week? This is my publication, I make the rules, right? I have, however, been taking loads of pictures of cooking, with a mind to blog, and perhaps it´s all become a bit overwhelming.

Let me start with spätzle. This was introduced to me by my youngest sister, who spent a year in her youth in Munich, learning German at the Goethe Institute and working at a diner. I got myself this nifty tool on a trip to Vienna in 2001, and have only recently started using it. It looks a bit like a grater, and you grate a sticky pasta dough into boiling water with it, making droppy-looking fresh pasta. We made some the other night, with elk steak.

I used four eggs, half a liter of wheat flour (about 2 cups), 100 ml water, salt and pepper. I whipped this together, making a very sticky, fluffy dough. I grated this, one dollop at a time, into salted boiling water, and boiled for a few minutes, after which I lifted the spätzle with a perforated ladle and put it on a tray to dry. This made enough spätzle for four portions (two meals) for us, but bear in mind we are not heavy eaters.

Before I serve it, I fry it ever so lightly with butter to heat it up and add some flavour. It is also a classic to bake it with cheese in the oven, a dish called Käsespätzle, often accompanied with fried union.

It goes with anything, like potatoes or pasta. I prefer it to bought pasta, as I prefer anything I can make easily from scratch. I have yet to experiment with wholemeal, I think that would work.

Spätzle-makers can be bought on amazon, all kinds of them (what can´t be bought on amazon?), or, it can be made like this. Or you can use a cullender.