Portuguese Rice Pudding: Arroz Doce

There are various recipes for rice pudding the world over, and this is one from Portugal. I checked several recipes for this Portuguese rice pudding, which is common for holidays and other special events in Portugal, and the Portuguese recipes can vary somewhat; for instance, a smaller number of recipes use orange peel and juice instead of lemon peel and juice, and an even smaller number of recipes use a few drops of vanilla, but from what I found, mainly the lemon peel (or orange peel) is left to flavor the rice on its own.

 

If you use non-salted butter, you can add a good pinch of salt to the milk while it's heating. This recipe cooks the rice more than partially, but finishes cooking the rice in the sweetened and lemon flavored milk.

 

Ingredients (6 to 8 servings):

 

1 cup arborio rice

1 1/2 cups water 

2 cups milk (I use 1 cup of canned evaporated milk, not condensed milk,  and 1 cup regular milk)  

3/4 to 1 cup sugar (to desired sweetness preference)

2 egg yolks

3 tablespoons salted butter (divided use)

1 tablespoon fresh lemon juice

zest of one lemon, grated or finely chopped

ground cinnamon for topping large serving bowl or for individual servings

 

To a heavy-bottomed sauce pan over medium heat, add 1 1/2 cups of water plus 2 tablespoon (salted) butter. Stir and bring to a boil, then add the rice and turn the heat to very low and cover the pan; let cook for 15 minutes, by which time the rice should be almost done; sort of "al dente." If so, remove the rice from the heat. This step overlaps with the rice cooking; so, while the rice is cooking, in another somewhat larger heavy-bottomed pan, heat the milk over medium heat. After it is no longer cold, add the sugar and stir well to dissolve it. Let the milk come just to the point of simmering, and then add another tablespoon of butter and the lemon zest, stir well again. Turn the heat down to low or very low and add the rice to the milk mixture. Beat the eggs in a small bowl, then add some of the hot milk and cooked pudding and keep whisking to temper the eggs, then whisk it into the pudding, along with the lemon juice. Traditionally, the Portuguese use ground cinnamon to make a design on top of the pudding, with religious people often making a cross, but stencils are sometimes used for various designs. If you're like me, and you're not terribly artistic, you can just sprinkle a little ground cinnamon on top of the large dish used to serve the pudding, or onto the tops of individual servings (as in the photos, below). 

 

WORD HISTORY:

Vicinity-This word is related to the "-wick" and "-wich" of place names (such as in Warwick and Norwich), both "-wick" and "-wich" are from the Germanic roots of English, but Old Germanic had borrowed the source from Latin in ancient times, and "vicinity" is related to "villa," another Latin derived word, but borrowed by English from Italian, and to "village" and to "villain," both Latin-derived words, but borrowed by English from French. "Vicinity" goes back to Indo European "weik," which had the notion of "settlement, house, abode:" thus also, "villa, village." This gave Latin "vicus" meaning "series or collection of homes;" thus also, "a village." This then produced the Latin adjective "vicinus," which was used as a noun for "area in close proximity;" thus also, "a neighborhood;" thus also adjectivally, "neighboring," and this gave Latin the noun "vicinitas" (accusative: 'vicinitatem'), meaning "neighborhood, the area near to a given point;" thus, "nearness." Latin-based French took the word as "vicinité" and English borrowed the word in the mid 1500s, initially with the "nearness" meaning. The word is likely more of a borrowing from French, but with Latin influence, although it could be the other way around.