Kheer Recipe – Indian Rice Pudding

In my most recent list of Indian dishes I want to make, I included kheer, the Indian rice pudding. It is a lot more delicious and exotic than regular rice pudding. Although I would never deny a Mexican rice pudding either.

I finally got all the ingredients I needed to make kheer, and two afternoons ago, I made kheer for the first time, and I did with success. The recipe is very simple.

I don’t follow recipes very well. I am a self-taught cook, and online recipes and Google info about food have been my inspirations and teachers. To make anything, I usually look up a recipe, in fact I look up many recipes of the same thing, and choose the best one for me. I always have the intention to follow the recipe exactly, but I never end up doing that. I make tweaks and substitutions along the way, and honestly, it always comes out good, at least my husband says so, and I believe him because he is very honest and not one to sugar coat anything.

So here is what I did to make kheer…

I chopped the nuts: pistachios, almonds, and cashews.

I am already making tweaks by chopping more nuts than the recipe needed. When I was taking this picture I thought: “whoa! it even looks like India!” I did not do it on purpose. Am I going crazy?

Then I fried the nuts in ghee (clarified butter) for a few minutes until lightly browned.

I set the nuts aside, to use the pot for the rest of the cooking.

Having good quality cookware is a worthy investment. It allows for better control of your food, easier cleaning, and longer lasting. A stainless steel kadhai is great for this kheer, or a red copper pan for many different uses, is a great option, too.

Then, I fried the rice in the same pot with leftover ghee, for a few minutes. I was supposed to add the milk now, but instead, I added some water to cook the rice further, and then the milk. Why did I do that? I read that for 1/4 cup of rice, 4 cups of milk are needed to cook the rice and let the milk reduce for 20-30min. So, to save time and milk, I boiled the rice in 1/4 cup of water for about 3-5 min, and then added 1 1/2 cups of milk to finish cooking the rice and let the milk reduce until ready.

Brought the milk to a boil, lowered the flame and let the milk reduce for about 15min. Stirring often.

In the meantime, I crushed the seeds of one cardamom pod in my mortar and pestle to make about 1/4 tsp of cardamom powder, and got the pinch of saffron ready.

I tried the rice for readiness and added half of the nuts, a pinch of saffron which I rolled between my fingers to release the flavour, and the cardamom powder, then mixed well. I totally forgot about the coconut, it is not necessary but will definitely add it next time because I love coconut.

 

Then, I added the rest of the nuts for garnish.

Yum.

Gone in 3 seconds. (Maybe more, I am terrible at estimating passing time.)

What’s great about this dessert is that it can be served hot or cold. I had it warm, freshly made. And Josh, a couple hours later, woke up from his nap and tasted it cold. It makes me happy when he likes my desserts because he doesn’t have a sweet tooth. He really liked it. His words were: “wow, the flavors really come out the more you eat it. If they gave you more time to cook, you could win MasterChef.” I guess we watch too many cooking competition shows and he thinks I take too long to cook. It’s funny that he really meant it, but he is totally wrong. There is no way I could win, but it was nice to hear and see him eat his whole serving.