Cardamom rice pudding

This can be easily made in a microwave, which means you won’t have to scrape all the burnt bits off the cooking dish afterwards – enough for 4:

• Seeds from 30 green cardamom pods finely ground
• 70g pudding rice
• 1 tbsp sugar
• 1 pint milk

Mix all the ingredients together in a microwaveable (lidded) dish.

Bring to the boil (this took about 6 minutes at 900W).

Stir, and cook for about an an hour at 150W – stirring at 20 minute intervals.

Pour into a plastic storage container, allow to cool, and keep in the fridge before serving.

I served this with strawberries and orange segments, seasoned with black pepper.

Microwaved cardamon rice pudding

This will serve 3 or 4 people. I increased the normal amount of rice (60g) by 20g to produce a very solid rice pudding which can be served cold, turned out from large individual ramekin dishes (which if filled to the top, yielding 3 portions):

• 1 pint milk (568ml – to be precise!)
• Seeds from 12 green cardamom pods (ground using a pestle and mortar)
• 80g pudding rice (or risotto rice)
• 1 tbsp sugar

Put all the ingredients into a microwavable casserole dish with a lid. Stir and cover, and microwave at 750W until the milk starts to boil (about 7 minutes). Remove from the microwave, stir, cover and bring back to the boil (at 750W). Then immediately turn down to ‘defrost’ and cook for 1 hour. The result should be a creamy glutinous mass.

Line the bases of three ramekin dishes with discs of baking parchment. Fill each dish with rice pudding and level off the tops. Allow to cool and refrigerate for at least 4 hours before serving. The rice can easily be turned out of the ramekin moulds, by running a knife around the edge of the dish, turning upside down and removing the baking parchment.

I served mine with defrosted berries from Lidl’s frozen Black Forest Fruits, which – although they now contain strawberries – are still quite good as they now also contain some rather tasty cherries.