Rice kheer | Indian rice pudding

Traditional rice kheer is my all time favourite Indian dessert. I just love it. It reminds me a lot of the rice pudding we had growing up in the UK, but rice kheer is flavoured with cardamom, saffron, rosewater and raisins & nuts are also added. This recipe is very easy so if you are looking for a good place to start with Indian desserts, you can't really go wrong with a rice kheer. I didn't have rosewater or saffron so this one I just flavoured with cardamom. Fun fact: the two silver spoons in the picture came from Dutch grandad, and they have on the tips Dutch sailing boats from different towns! This recipe serves 4. 

Ingredients

1/4 cup basmati rice 

1 litre full fat milk 

3-4 tbsp sugar (to taste). To make it even richer you can add 1/4 cup or 50ml condensed milk (yum!) 

3/4 tsp cardamom powder or seeds from 8 cardamom pods, based to a powder 

1 tbsp raisins (golden or regular) 

1 tbsp cashews (roughly chopped) 

1 tbsp flaked almonds (or normal almonds, roughly chopped) 

Knob butter or 1 tbsp ghee 

Method

• Rinse the rice a couple of times under cold running water.
  
  
  
• Place the rice in a bowl and soak for around 10-15 minutes.
  
  
  
• Whilst the rice is soaking, take a large saucepan and pour in the milk.
  
  
  
• Turn the heat to low and bring to the boil, stirring to prevent it from catching.
  
  
  
• Once the milk is boiling - drain the water from the rice and then add to the milk.
  
  
  
• Stir to prevent it from becoming lumpy.
  
  
  
• Keep the heat on low and stir from time to time whilst the rice is cooking.
  
  
  
• When the rice is around 75% cooked, add the sugar and cardamom powder. Mix well. The kheer should also be thickening slightly at this stage.
  
  
  
• Now, take a small non-stick pan and place on a low heat. Gently toast the cashews and almonds until golden.
  
  
  
• Add the almonds and cashews to the kheer.
  
  
  
• Cook until the kheer until it starts to thicken even more and the rice is completely cooked.
  
  
  
• Finally add the raisins and the butter/ghee.
  
  
  
• Turn off the heat. Let the kheer rest for 10 minutes or so so it thickens up even more.
  
  
  
• If you prefer you can have the kheer cold. It can be served warm, hot or cold. 

If you want to make this a mango kheer - then add some mango puree at the end. I have done a recipe for this - see here.