Recipe – Risalamande! 😀

Risalamande, not sure about an English name for this dish, rice pudding perhaps? Probably the most well-known Christmas dessert in Denmark, and certainly our favourite. Here you get the BEST recipe:

Ingredients for the first steps (make this the day before the final step): 238 g porridge rice (rissotto rice or in Germany Milchreis is good too), 3-4 dl water x 3, 1 liter full-cream milk and 2,5 dl heavy or double whipping cream.

Add the rice into boiling water in a cast iron casserole, cook for 60 seconds, pour through a strainer, cook again for 60 seconds in fresh water and repeat once more.

Finally add the rice to the pot again, add the milk and cream, stir while increase heating until a low level of boiling/simmer. Let the porridge simmer with the lid on for 35 minutes while occasionally stirring a bit.

Let the porridge cool down to about 30 degrees. Take away about 2 dl for the attic Christmas elf!

Next ingredients: 150 g sugar, 120 g almond splinters, 2 fat quality bourbon vanilla pods, 8 dl heavy whipping cream (38 – 50 % fat content).

Cut the vanilla pods in half lengthwise. Scrape out the seeds with a knife, mix the vanilla seeds with 30 grams of sugar. Stir the vanilla pods, vanilla-sugar, 80 g sugar and the almond splinters into the luke warm porridge and let it cool down completely.

Last step – remove the vanilla pods from the porridge. Whip the heavy cream with the remaining sugar, not too stiff!! Carefully, slowly, add the whipped cream to the porridge, cool down in the fridge.
Enjoy the risalamande cold with luke warm or cold cherry sauce.

Bonus feature, in Denmark it is custom to add ONE whole almond without skin to the bowl, and the one lucky person finding this almond in his/hers dish, receives the “almond present”.