Recipe: Coconut Rice Pudding With Brown Sugar Pineapples by Ping Coombes

Rice pudding gets a bad rap sometimes. Many might say it’s too bland. Others might know it as the ultimate hospital dessert. But they’ve never tried this version by Masterchef UK winner Ping Coombes, who came around to the pariah of puddings just in time for her second cookbook, Rice. 

“I was never a rice pudding fan until I tried this, which is wetter and has more bite than traditional rice pudding,” writes Coombes of this version, which she came across during a restaurant stage early in her career. “I adapted it to store well in the refrigerator for serving at my supper club”.

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Coconut rice pudding with brown sugar pineapples

Serves: 4–6
Preparation time: 10 minutes
Cooking time: 35 minutes

Ingredients

85g pudding rice
400ml full-fat milk
400ml coconut milk
100g granulated (white) sugar
½ tsp sea salt

For the brown sugar pineapples
½ small pineapple
1 tbsp salted butter
40g soft dark brown sugar
Juice of ¼ lime

Method

Place the pudding rice, both milks and the sugar in a medium saucepan and bring to a simmer. Stir often, so that the rice does not stick to the base of the pan. Cook over a low-to-medium heat for 20–25 minutes until the rice is soft but still has a little bite to it.

Add the salt, then remove the pan from the heat and leave to rest for 10–15 minutes.

Meanwhile, cut the pineapple half in half again and remove the core. Slice each half lengthways into 3 pieces.

Melt the butter in a medium frying pan. Add the pineapple pieces to the pan, cut-sides-down, and fry until browned, then flip them over and sprinkle over the brown sugar. Move the pineapple pieces around so they are coated in the sugar and let it melt and start to bubble on the sides.

Squeeze the lime juice into the pan, give it a stir, then remove from the heat.

Serve the rice pudding in bowls, each topped with a slice of the warm caramelised pineapple. Alternatively, you can cut the pineapple into smaller bite-sized pieces.

This is an edited extract from Rice by Ping Coombes, with photography by Sam Folan. Published by Murdoch Books (RRP $49.99).