Ris à la Malta, Swedish Orange Rice Pudding
Ris à la Malta is the cold, fruit-flecked rice pudding Swedes eat through the Christmas season, born as a way to use up the leftover risgrynsgröt from the day before. The porridge is cooked soft, chilled, then lightened with whipped cream and studded with mandarin or orange. This version leans on short-grain brown rice for the creamy body, oat milk and a little oat cream for richness, and dates melted into the hot pot for sweetness, so the only added sugar is the fruit's own. The orange does double duty, its zest perfuming the rice and its segments bursting cold against the soft grains. Make it a day ahead; it wants to be thoroughly chilled, and the flavors settle overnight. Serve it in small bowls with a few reserved orange segments on top.
Ingredients
- 3/4 cup short grain brown rice
- 3 cups Unsweetened oat milk
- 1 stick Ceylon cinnamon
- 3 wholes Oranges
- 4 wholes Medjool dates, pitted, minced
- 1/2 cup Oat cream
Method
- Simmer the rice in the oat milk with the cinnamon stick and a cup (240 ml) of water, covered and low, for about 40 minutes until the grains are soft and the pot is thick and porridge-like. Short-grain rice is what you want because its round starch turns creamy; a long-grain rice would stay separate and never bind into pudding.
- Stir the minced dates into the hot porridge so they melt in, then pull the cinnamon stick and let the pot cool completely. The dates dissolve into the warm rice and sweeten it from within, which is why the pudding needs no sugar at all.
- Zest one orange into the cold rice, then peel all three and cut the segments free of their membranes, saving the juice. Folding in both the zest and the fresh segments gives two kinds of orange, the perfume from the peel and the bright bursts from the fruit, which is what makes ris à la Malta more than plain rice pudding.
- Whip the oat cream with a little of the reserved orange zest until it holds soft folds, then fold it and the orange segments and juice through the chilled rice. Folding at the end keeps the pudding light and loose rather than stodgy; the Swedes serve it cold at Christmas, mounded in a bowl with extra orange on top.
Nutrition
Estimated per serving: 230 calories, 5 g protein, 3 g fiber, 50 mg sodium. Computed from USDA FoodData Central reference values for the main ingredients. This is an approximation, not a laboratory measurement. How these are computed.
Cost per serving is estimated from US national-average retail prices for cheap staple forms, using BLS dried-bean prices and USDA produce prices. Prices vary by store and season, so treat it as a guide, not a receipt. How this is computed.
