Dreamy Chai Rice Pudding
By: Christina Soong...
Published: Monday, October 3, 2011 - 7:31pm

Ingredients




1 cup rice (I used long grain rice)
4 cups whole milk
1 cup freshly brewed tea (I used Twinings English Breakfast and left the tea left to brew for five minutes)
1 teaspoon cinnamon powder
1 teaspoon ginger powder
3 whole cardomon pods
1 whole star anise
6 large cloves
1 teaspoon vanilla essence (or 1 vanilla bean)
1/4 cup brown sugar

Preparation

1 METHOD 2 Put milk, tea, rice and all spices in a small saucepan and bring to boil. The turn down and simmer for around 20 minutes, stirring occasionally. 3 Add sugar and turn heat back up to high. Cook for three to four minutes, stirring all the time as the pudding thickens. 4 Serve in individual bowls. If you wish, you can pick out the spices before serving (use a spoon as the pudding will be very hot) but I figure most people can cope with minor details like that.

About

I seem to have developed a semi-serious addiction to chai lattes. There’s something about the combination of cardamon, cinnamon, cloves, ginger and star anise that is just so lovely and warming. And I adore rice pudding – it’s one of the ultimate comfort foods.
So this Chai Rice Pudding recipe brings together two of my favourites.
This dish was inspired by a conversation yesterday during a long lunch at my parent’s house. One of my aunties had brought along what is essentially an Asian rice pudding for dessert – gelatinous black rice cooked with brown palm sugar and coconut milk.
This led to me reminiscing about the rice pudding I ate in London when I was living there, which was basically white rice cooked in milk with vanilla.
I thought about cooking both the Western and Asian rice puddings and then combining them in a bowl in a yin yang design. As yin yang is about how opposites forces are interconnected and interdependent it would be both a recipe and a political, cultural, and anthropological statement. (Wow. Where did that come from?)
But I wasn’t sure. The yin yang pudding would be very dramatic but would it look a bit, well, twee? And would it taste good or would it be a confused mish-mash of flavours?
Then, as I was driving home, I had a lightbulb moment – what about a chai rice pudding? It would be just like a chai latte except it would contain rice and it would be just like a rice pudding but chai flavoured.
How could it not work?
So I made it this afternoon and I’m still eating it as I type this.
On this day, at this moment, I am completely content.