No Frills Dessert: Black Glutinous Rice Pudding with Coconut Milk Drizzle

Despite the title no-frills dessert, I can’t say that I make this rice pudding all the time. In fact, the last time I had this dessert was when I still called myself a teenager.

As I often move around places where there’s no Chinatown or Asian groceries are scarce (not by choice, of course), black glutinous rice is precious in my eyes. When my friend brought this dessert over to my potluck  party a couple of weeks ago, I was thrilled to reconnect with my teenhood favourite.

Anyway, since my friend knows how much I wish to recreate this dessert,  he gave me his remaining stash to me. Happiness.

There are many ways you can go about making this. If you like it a bit fancy, you can add palm sugar and knotted pandan leaves to flavour it up.  If this is still too plain for you, banana fritters and grilled mango make wonderful accompaniments.

Since this is a rice pudding à la fuss free, only sugar and water is used. You’ll be surprised to find that the rice itself exudes sweet aroma likened to vanilla and pandan when boiling in water and my favourite part of the cooking process is watching the rice stains the water into Ribena-like colour.

Serves 4  people

1 cup black glutinous rice ( can be found in Asian grocery stores)

5  2/3 cups water

1/2 cup sugar

about 1 cup coconut milk to drizzle

1. In a medium sized pot, add water and black rice.  Simmer uncovered under low to medium heat for 70 minutes (the reason I say uncovered is so that I can walk away without worrying the mixture will boil over and caramelised on my stovetop – this’d spell disaster). To shorten the cooking time, you can soak the rice a day before.

2. Stir in sugar in the last 15 minutes of the cooking time. The rice mixture will be mushy and thickened around this time, so stir  gently to make sure it doesn’t stick at the bottom.

3. Drizzle coconut milk just before serving. My personal preference is to serve while it’s piping hot but it is equally good at room temperature or cold.

Emily’s note: You can vary its consistency at the end of the cooking time. If you like it congee style (my dad for one), add more water and sugar to taste.