Twisted Vintage: Black Rice Pudding

Kinda like shopping at a vintage store...taking a great old dish and making it "hipster" with just a few twists. Only a dessert doesn't take as much commitment as a 60's Twiggy dress.

Black Rice Pudding
3 cups cooked black rice
2 eggs
1 cup milk
1 cup half and half
2 tablespoons molasses
2 tablespoons brown sugar
1 teaspoon grated fresh ginger root
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 vanilla bean
Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Butter 4 ramekins, 16 ounce capacity, and split the rice equally into them. In a mixing bowl, beat eggs then add milk, half and half, molasses, brown sugar, ginger, salt and the scraping of the vanilla bean. Beat until well combined and pour evenly over rice. Place ramekins in a baking dish with sides. Fill baking dish with water half way up ramekins. Place 1/4 of the vanilla bean pod gently on top of each portion. Bake for 35 to 40 minutes. Serve warm or cold.

Hints: Use left over black rice or coconut black rice for this dessert. It is also great for breakfast or brunch. Use only brown sugar if you don't like the intensity of molasses. I don't bother to peel the ginger root before micro-planing it in this recipe. Scraping a vanilla bean is easy; slit the pod lengthwise and open it up. Lightly pull a knife down the inside and use what collects on the knife in your recipe. Including the pods will add more flavor to the finished dish and eating the pods won't hurt you, but the taste and the texture is not very good and I would encourage you to discard them.

Black rice is a relatively new food for me and I am so glad I found it. Asian markets sell it by the bag and it is worth going out of your way to find some. Cooking it just like you would brown or white rice makes it so easy to incorporate into your diet. My only other advice is to have a tooth pick handy after you eat it.