Yes, really. I could just call it rice ice cream, but then you’d think I’m weird. If you think about it, rice ice cream is pretty much just cold rice pudding — the cooked rice takes on a chewier texture, and the dairy-based pudding forms a soft, creamy ice cream. After all, rice pudding contains all the ingredients you’d put into a basic vanilla ice cream, plus rice.
I can’t take credit for this idea on my own.We encountered it at an ice cream shop, Arkino, on north Dizengoff. I don’t recall what exactly Arkino put into its rice ice cream, but it was quite good, and unfortunately, not one of their regular flavors. Well, no better excuse to borrow an idea.
As a parve/vegan variation, you could try this with coconut cream and water, instead of cream and milk — more along the lines of Thai sticky rice than European rice pudding.
These quantities make a little bit less than a liter, which is plenty, since like a child with a new toy, I get bored of ice cream flavors after several servings.
2 cups cooked rice (about 1 cup dry long-grained rice)
1 1/3 cups milk
1/3 cup sugar
1/2 teaspoon vanilla
pinch salt
1 cup heavy cream
2 teaspoons amaretto liqueur
First, cook the rice: Boil 1 cup of long-grained rice in 2 cups of water on a low flame, until all the water is absorbed.
Put the milk, sugar, vanilla and salt on the stove with the rice, and heat until just short of boiling. Shut the flame, add the cream and amaretto, and let the rice absorb the liquids. Once the pudding is lukewarm, put it into the fridge until cold.
Freeze in your ice cream maker in keeping with the instructions. The grains of rice may break into smaller pieces in the process, but the final product will still have a pronounced rice texture.
