Vanilla Rice Pudding with Poached Pears, Crumbled Gingerbread and Pecans from Aoife Noonan on Today with Maura and Dáithí.
Ingredients
For the Rice Pudding:
- 130g Pearl or Pudding Rice
- 750ml Milk
- 35g Sugar
- 1 Vanilla Pod, seeds scraped
For the Poached Pears:
- 500ml Water
- 250g Sugar
- 1 Vanilla Pod, seeds scraped
- 2 Pears
- 1tbsp Lemon Juice
For the Toasted Pecans:
- 50g Pecan Nuts
For the Gingerbread: (Makes 1 Loaf Tin)
- 175g Flour
- 1tbsp Ground Cinnamon
- 1tbsp Ground Ginger
- ½ tsp Bicarbonate of Soda
- 2tbsp Milk
- 75g Treacle
- 75g Golden Syrup
- 75g Dark Brown Sugar
- 75g Butter
- 1 Egg
- Zest of 1 Orange and 1 Lemon
Method
For the Rice Pudding:
- Rinse the rice in cold water until the water runs clear.
- Put the rice into a saucepan with the vanilla seeds and the sugar.
- Cook over a low heat, stirring regularly until the rice has absorbed most of the milk and becomes creamy, about 15 minutes.
- Serve warm or chilled.
For the Poached Pears:
- Make a syrup to poach the pears by putting the water, sugar, vanilla pod and seeds into a medium saucepan and bringing to a boil.
- Reduce to a simmer and prepare the pears.
- Peel and halve the pears. Remove the core using a spoon or melon baller.
- Place the pears in a bowl of cold water with the lemon juice.
- When ready to poach, place the pears into the poaching liqueur and cook the pears until soft but not falling apart, about 5-7 minutes depending on the ripeness of the pear.
- Keep warm in the syrup or serve chilled.
For the Toasted Pecans:
- Put the pecans on a baking tray and place in a preheated oven at 180C for 5 minutes until nicely toasted, ensuring they don’t burn.
- Leave to cool and roughly chop.
For the Gingerbread:
- Preheat the oven to 170C.
- Mix the flour, spices and zests together in a bowl.
- Mix the bicarbonate of soda with the milk and set aside.
- Put the treacle, golden syrup, butter and sugar into a saucepan on a medium heat with 75ml Water to melt.
- Once melted, add the syrup to the flour, beating with a wooden spoon.
- Add the egg, followed by the milk, beating all the time.
- Grease a loaf tin and pour the mix into the tin.
- Bake the loaf for 45 minutes. Remove the tin from the oven and cool for 5 minutes before turning out of the tin.
- Leave to cool before using as required.
To serve:
- Spoon the cooled rice pudding into a bowl and top with a pear half.
- Crumble over the gingerbread and the chopped pecans and serve.
