When my mum was visiting me in Buffalo, she started a trend of throwing a holiday party. In 2012 we invited over ten people. In 2013 I invited a few of my close friends in Boston. This year, after coming back from India, my husband and I are getting ready for our holiday party in our new home. When we were talking about the menu, he told me to stick to an Indian menu because our guests do not eat it very often. He reminded me to keep it as authentic as I can.
In Bengali tradition, all parties end with rice pudding. My grammy and mother serves rice pudding with some sweets as shown in the picture above. During our visit to India, my mom was giving my rice pudding addicted husband a bowl of it accompanied with two or three sweets at the end of every meal. So I decided to end our 2014 holiday party with a bowl of ‘payesh’ or Bengali rice pudding. A few months back during Durga Puja I made it with Arborio rice. Arborio is very thick and starchy, so my rice pudding was very thick and creamy. My mum, who has been making rice pudding her entire life, discarded it after seeing the photo: “This is not correct. You could not do it.”
She prepares rice pudding with a special rice called “Gobindobhog.” In the US you can find it in most Bangladeshi stores. Many Indian food bloggers substitute it with Basmati or Jasmine Rice, but I’ve never tried this and cannot vouch for it.
This is what Gobindobhog looks like:
There are two ways you can prepare this Bengali rice pudding. You can add sugar and/or jaggery, but I prefer the one with jaggery. We brought two pounds of jaggery and two pounds of short-grained rice back from India for my rice pudding fanatic husband. Bengali’s do not call it “rice pudding”–in our language we call it “payesh”. The consistency is lot thinner than regular rice pudding. When preparing rice pudding with jaggery we do not add any other flavors or spices so that nothing detracts from the jaggery’s blissful aroma. You can find jaggery in your local Indian or Bangladeshi store.
Make sure you add the jaggery after taking it off the flame. Otherwise, milk will curdle.
Recipe for Payesh (Indian Rice Pudding)
1. In a big thick bottom pot, start boiling the milk in medium-high heat. Boil it for 8-10 minutes while stirring continuously.
2. When milk reduces to 3/4th of its original volume, add rice. Keep stirring(otherwise rice will stick to the bottom) for 20-25 minutes, until rice is fully boiled.
3. Add dry fruits and stir for 2-3 minutes.
4. Take off the flame and add jaggery. Stir until jaggery melts down.
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