Creamy Rice and Orange Pudding

Tags

arborio rice, desserts, layered pudding, mastic gum, middle easern, muhallabia, orange, orange pudding, orange rose water, pudding, rice pudding, مهلبية بالبرتقال, ارز بالحليب

Not so different from the western-style rice pudding, but this one has the orange water and mastic gum for flavor and is finished with a creamy layer of orange pudding topped with pistachio. These are normally found in an Arabic or Pakistani food store here in the US.
This middle eastern pudding is a favorite both summer and winter, especially liked by children and always served to invalids.

You can use any short grain rice, I used Arborio rice. Mix rice with water first and let cooked until softened, this way the rice will give all starch it need to thicken the milk pudding without adding any eggs or corn starch.

What make this a middle eastern favourite is the flavor of orange water, the mastic gum, and some people like to add also rose-water, but all it depends on what’s your taste bud like. You can use vanilla to flavour the rice pudding or cinnamon, or any flavour you like….

Also I like to add more cream to the the milk, one brand that I always use is the Nestle media creme, you can find it in a local walmart store, may be the Mexican section.

1\2 cup Arborio rice
1 3\4 cup water
3 cup milk
1\3 teaspoon mastic gum
1 tablespoon orange water
1\4 cup granulated sugar
1 Nestle table cream

for the orange pudding

1 1\2 cup fresh orange juice
1\4 cup sugar
1 1\2 tablespoon corn starch
1 teaspoon orange water

Rinse the rice under cold water and put it in a sauce pan. Add the water and place it over a medium heat, bring to boil, reduce the heat and simmer for 15 -20 min or until the rice has absorbed all the water and become very soft.

Pour in the milk , increase the heat to medium and bring back to boil, stirring occasionally. Cook for 5 min, then lower the heat and cook for another 10-15 min. Stirring the mixture so that the rice does not stick to the bottom of the pan.

Add in the sugar and cook for a few more minutes, still stirring. Add the orange water, the mastic, and stir for another minute, finally add the cream stir for 2-3 minutes until thickened. It’s important to keep stirring while simmering to insure it will thicken.
If the pudding not thickened (which is week chance this will happen if you stirred it well), just in a separate cup add 1 tablespoon corn starch to 3 tablespoon cold milk, stir it to dissolve the starch in the milk then add it gradually with continuous stirring to the rice pudding. stir well until thickening.

Take off the heat and pour into individual cups. Prepare the orange pudding.
In a sauce pan, add the orange juice the corn starch and sugar, stir well until the starch dissolved, put on medium heat, keep stirring until boil. Lower the heat and simmer, keep stirring, cook for 5-10 minutes until begin to thicken, add the orange rose-water, stir for more 2-3 minutes, then take it off.

Fati from Fai’s Recipes have tagged me over questions about my self:

Describe yourself in 7 words…

Food Passionate specially creamy desserts
Dreamer
Love reading romance novels in arabic and english
Like soft music
Not very talkative or social personality, but I’m a very good listener
Like the smell of fresh laundry
Palestinian Muslim

What keeps you up at night?
well, lots of things; some times my kids homework, commenting to other foodies, working on a new post…., and yes, finishing the last couple of chapter on a very interesting novel.

Who would you like to be?
Me and only me. My dreams go now to finish my graduate degree, and then decide which dreams will fit better for me to wear it…

What are you wearing now?
I just dropped the kids to school, so definitely my jeans….

What scares you?
Snakes, I always have bad dreams of them…don’t know why? any suggestions?

What are the best and worst things about blogging?
The best is meeting and sharing the love with YOU, FOODIES.
The worst is THE TIME, it really killing me…

What is the last website you looked at?
Fati’s recipe to copy the questions for the tagging.

If you could change one thing about yourself, what would it be?
MY over sensitivity, sometimes it puts me in troubles…

Slankets, yes or no?
Do you mean the sleeved blanket or not…?! sorry, didn’t understand it…

Tell us something about the person who tagged you…
Fati,  Another Food Passionate. I like to read her blog; she’s creative (can quickly adapt with  the failed recipes and make a successful meal), Honest with the results, she makes a very delicious esh elbulbul and many many middle eastern recipes.

As for the rules, I have to pass the questions to another foodies, whose not tagged yet. So I would like to pass it to some of the ffodies I like to follow :

Nami @ Just One Cookbook

Manu @ Manus Menu

Ann @ Sumptuous Spoonfuls

Jammi Ann @ A Dash of Domestic

Joumana @ Taste of Beirut