Brown Basmati & Coconut Rice Pudding

Rice pudding, like sago or tapioca, can be a pretty polarising dish. People either seem to love it or hate it.

I personally love rice pudding of all kinds – sticky black rice, long-grain rice, short-grain rice. I also love sago and tapioca. When there’s coconut milk involved, even better. Add mango into the mix and I’m one very happy person.

My boyfriend is a very talented cook and baker, which is like a dream come true for me. Not just because the responsibility of cooking doesn’t all completely lie on my shoulders, but because it’s really fun having someone to enjoy, experience and discuss food with that gets it like I do.

His understanding of flavours is immense, and he’s taught me a lot. The fact that he’s an aeronautical engineer by trade also makes him extremely precise and analytical, so the science behind things isn’t lost on him, whereas my approach can be somewhat aloof. The combination of these two approaches to food and cooking brings about a wonderful balance.

So while we both know our way around the kitchen, we don’t clash there. Unless we’re talking about rice pudding.

I can’t quite remember why we started talking about this particular dessert, but it might have been after an episode of MasterChef Australia. Sticky rice with mango came up and Stefan had very strong feelings about it. In fact, the word “sticky” totally freaked him out, so I went on to Pinterest and got lost down a rice pudding rabbit hole (as one does).

It was only after he actually explained himself and said “it’s almost like a porridge”, that I clicked and figured out that I needed to be looking at rice pudding and not sticky rice. Duh!

Thankfully it only took me one attempt at making a boyfriend-approved rice pudding, and I adapted it to only make enough to serve two (either four small portions of two decent portions each).

Ingredients

1/3 cup brown basmati rice
2/3 cups water
pinch fine sea salt
320ml coconut milk
3 tbsp brown sugar
1 tsp vanilla
fresh mango, sliced
toasted coconut

Method

Place the brown basmati, water, salt, coconut milk, brown sugar and vanilla in a saucepan on medium-low heat.
Cook for 20 minutes, stirring frequently until it comes to a boil. Turn down down the heat and leave it to simmer uncovered for 40-60 minutes. Stir every now and then to make sure it’s not sticking.
When the rice is soft, remove from the heat and allow to cool before serving with sliced mango and toasted coconut.