Happy New Year – 2014!
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“Warmer Reis Auflauf!”
Warm Rice Cake
This was my father’s favorite dessert
for the New Year’s Celebration!
Reis-Auflauf is a Rice Cake, a Rice Suffle, or Rice Pudding…. however you want to call it….it is a most delicious and satisfying dessert, and I truly love it….. especially when served warm!
During my family’s time in Croatia and at all their social activities with friends this desert invariably settled stomachs after many toasts of Slivovica! It is particularly delicious with a wonderful Weinchaudeau…a warm custard cream cooked with a light fruity white wine. Yes, more wine in the cream!
Croatia and it’s people have many superstitions and rely on them daily…..There are so many “proverbs” that often come to my mind when I think of when I was a little girl and was watching the adult world around me. My grandmother had the house cleaned and swept to the utmost, “working the maids to the bone” to make sure that every speck of “dirt” was swept out of the house so that the New Year could be started from scratch. All the laundry had to be washed and ironed, clothes that were too large or too small, were given to the poor. No dishes would have been left in the kitchen; no left-overs would be kept into the New Year. New Year’s Day, January 1st…was a new beginning and filled with resolutions to make it better than the past.
Having had my beginning in Croatia, and having had a grandmother who was the dominant person in the family, I still have these same feelings as the year’s end nears…..
I am washing all the laundry, cleaning the refrigerator, making sure whatever left-overs we have are in the freezer. My house is clean, only the Reis Auflauf is in the making, and is baking to its golden hue with the Vanilla wafting through the air. Later I will be making the Wein Chaudeau and the air will be filled with sweet wine clouds surrounding me while I will remember my father who was the ultimate host at his table…..There was never a lack of conversation, never a moment’s lag in telling jokes or starting a song that everyone knew and chimed in……..singing was always a part of the Croatian heritage!
This recipe is in honor of my father who no longer is with us…………
Reis Auflauf mit Wein Chaudeau!
(Reis Cake with Wein-Custard Cream!)
2 cups rice – short-grain rice
2 cups water
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4 cups milk
1/2 tsp salt
3 slices of lemon peel
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6 eggs
1 cup sugar
zest of 1 lemon
1 cup almond slivers
1 cup raisins
1 cup chopped dried apricots or any other dried fruit of your choice
2 tsp Vanilla
1 cup heavy cream
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Cook rice in 2 cups of water for 6 to 10 min….begin timing after it starts boiling.
Rice will be just about half cooked.
Drain the rice if necessary with a strainer and transfer it back to the pan
Add 2 cups of hot milk and the lemon peel
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Cook the rice slowly until it is just done – take care not to have the milk boil over
this takes about 10 – 15 min.
Remove the lemon peel
Rice will not have absorbed all the milk
Add the 1/2 cup COLD heavy cream, mix and set aside to cool
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When the rice is cooled to room temperature……
Beat the eggs and sugar until light and fluffy – lemony in color
Add the beaten eggs and 2 more cups of milk to the cooled rice
Add Vanilla and zest of 1 lemon.
Add almonds, chopped apricots and raisins or any other dried fruit of your choice
Mix all together and spoon the mixture into a greased pan (15×9.5×1.5)
Bake at 350 F for 30 min…. than turn the temperature down to 300 F…
and bake for another 15 minutes
The cake should be lightly browned on top and
when tested with the tip of a knife, the knife should come out clean
Weinchaudeau!
(Wine Custard Cream)
1 cup + 2 Tbsp a medium dry white wine.
Gewurtztraminer, Chenin Blanc, or Johannisberg Riesling
1 egg
1/2 cup sugar
1 tsp cornstarch
Mix the four ingredients together in a double boiler and cook slowly with constant
stirring until it becomes a custard-like cream.
Serve this custard with a rice cake-squares, either warm or at room temperature….
I prefer it warm!!!!!!!
And……….this is a gluten-free dessert!
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May your New Year
be the best you ever had,
and may all your dreams come through,
and may 2014 be filled with blessings, love and joy!
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Copyright: Maria Reisz Springer……..
Maja’s Kitchen….
maria@majaskitchen.com
http://www.culinaryhalloffame.com/
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German
Wow, this looks good Maria! Buon anno from Umbria! Love, Elizabeth