What's cooking Wednesday

Today is the last day of my spotlight on my newest cookbook: Just One Pot. This time I made one of the dessert recipes. I thought it a fitting ending to the month with this book; end of the month, end of the meal, you know?

Chocolate and almond rice pudding

generous 3/4 cup arborio rice
1 small dried red chile (I didn't use this; I don't really like chili and chocolate together)
2 x 2 in strips orange zest
3 cardamom pods
3 1/2 cups milk
1/3 cup hot chocolate powder
2 heaped tsp cocoa powder
1/4 cup butter
1/2 cup slivered almonds
2 squares 70 percent dark chocolate

Place rice, chile, orange zest, cardamom pods, and milk in a heavey-bottom pan over low heat. Add a pinch of salt and stir for a few minutes to stop the rice from sticking while the milk heats up. Simmer very gently, stirring occasionally, for about 20 minutes, or until the rice is tender and most of the liquid absorbed.

Remove and discard the chile, orange zest, and cardamom pods. Stir in the hot chocolate powder, cocoa powder, and most of the butter. Melt the remaining butter in a skillet, then add the slivered almonds and toss until golden. Drain on absorbent paper towels and chop coarsely.

Stir most of the almonds into the pudding and transfer to a serving bowl. Garnish the top with remaining almonds. Break the chocolate into chunks and place in a small bowl. Suspend the bowl over simmering water and stir until melted. Zigzag the melted chocolate over the top of the pudding. Serve lukewarm or cold.

I made a couple of changes: I didn't drizzle any extra chocolate over the top; I felt it was chocolately enough; I served it with whipped cream instead. I also didn't mix the almonds into the pudding; instead I sprinkled them on top of the whipped cream because I didn't want to add crunchy bits into the smooth pudding.

As a recipe note, the flavour of this pudding completely depends on the kind of hot chocolate powder you use. I used Cocoa Camino Dark Hot Chocolate (my absolutely favourite hot chocolate) which isn't very sweet and is, as the name suggests, made of dark chocolate. The result was that the pudding was not very sweet at all. It would taste quite different if you used Macintosh Hot Chocolate (oh, that would be good) or Turtles Hot Chocolate (oh, also good). John added a drizzle of maple syrup to the top of his and declared it food of the gods served thus.

I would make this again but experiment with different kinds of hot chocolate. It was easy to make. Hope loved it. Emily ate the whipped cream off the top of hers.


As for this cookbook, now that I'm at the end of my month of recipes from this book, it was mostly a winner. I wasn't too keen on the eggs masala but I absolutely loved the lamb with tomatoes and cilantro. I really like the fact that each recipe is very quick to make and it makes enough usually for just 4 people making it really nice for a small family. I don't like the fact that many of the recipes call for fairly specialized ingredients that even I don't normally have on hand (me, of the large and diverse pantry). So, I may not suggest you run out and buy this book but I would suggest you borrow the lamb recipe for sure. You won't regret it. I will definitely try out some of her other recipes as well and I'll make sure to mention some of the hits here.

Next week, Karen goes frugal.