Rice Pudding

Description

Rice Pudding
The Promise, cooling in the oven!

Why would anyone eat dessert first?

At TheLongTable cooking classes, we do exactly that. Sütlaç goes into the fridge before anything else is even chopped.

Here’s the real reason: there are only two hours to cook an entire menu. After that, people get tired. And no one wants a silent dinner.

So dessert goes first. Cooking order isn’t a whim — it’s a discipline.

This was my grandfather’s favourite dessert, and for years I didn’t get it. Sweet rice? Rice, in a dessert? It sounded wrong.

Then I tasted it enough times to understand — and started adding my own zest, depending on the mood of the day.

The best sütlaç never came from a store. It came from milk delivered to the door by the milkman himself — full-fat, still warm. Left alone, it grows its own cream on top, kaymak, without anyone asking it to.

Put that under the grill and something happens: the cream burns, just slightly. Sweet turns into something closer to crème brûlée — burnt sugar, thick cream, a taste that sticks to the roof of your mouth and refuses to leave.

That’s the whole point. Nourishing. Sweet. Calming. Safe.

A shining treasure, sitting quietly in a dark oven, waiting for whoever is ready to eat it.

Ingredients
7 cups milk · 1 cup rice, already boiled · 1½ cups sugar (a little less) · 4 tbsp rice flour

Method
1. Boil the rice slowly, over low heat, so it releases its starch into the water.
2. In another pot, whisk together the milk, sugar and rice flour.
3. Stir over medium heat until it thickens; add the already-boiled rice.
4. When the mixture returns to a boil, turn off the heat and pour into small oven-safe cups.
5. Place under the top grill of the oven to brown the tops.

You can add orange peel — or any other fruit skin — for aroma. Depends on your creativity and taste.

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