Norwegian & Icelandic · Dessert

Riskrem

Intermediate
60 min
roughly 2 of 4 for cost
Vegetarian

rich · floral · bright · fiery Leads with richness that coats and comforts, a floral thread lifting the aroma, on a slow, honest burn.

Ingredients

150 g short grain pudding rice
250 ml water
900 ml whole milk
3 g fine salt
1 vanilla pod, split
400 ml double cream, at 4C (39F)
50 g icing sugar
300 g raspberries or cloudberries
60 g caster sugar
15 ml lemon juice (1 tbsp)
3 g cornflour (1 tsp), slaked in 15 ml cold water

Equipment

Sheet pan

The skills inside

Whipping a meringue The bare simmer: holding liquid below the boil

Allergen screen

Found: dairy

Screened for: gluten, dairy, egg, nuts, peanuts, fish, shellfish, molluscs, soy, sesame, celery, mustard, lupin, alcohol. Not screened: sulphites.

Screened by keyword from the ingredient list, not reviewed by a person; check every label for what the list cannot show.

Method

Bring the rice and water to a boil, cover, and cook 10 minutes until the water is absorbed and the grains have begun to swell. Add the milk, salt and vanilla pod and cook uncovered at the barest simmer for about 40 minutes, stirring often, until it is thick and the grains have burst. 10 min
Lift out the vanilla pod, spread the porridge in a shallow tray, stir it once or twice so no skin forms, and chill it to 4C (39F), which takes about 2 hours. It must be properly cold before the cream goes anywhere near it. 120 min
Simmer the berries with the caster sugar and lemon juice for 4 minutes, stir in the slaked cornflour and boil 30 seconds until the sauce turns glossy, then cool it. 4 min
Whip the cream, straight from the fridge at 4C (39F), with the icing sugar only to soft peaks that flop over when the whisk is lifted, and no further.
Fold a third of the cream into the cold rice to loosen it, fold in the rest in two more additions keeping the mixture light, and serve cold with the red sauce spooned over.

How to tell it is going right

This dish has no standard of its own yet. It is judged on the techniques it exercises: checked at the pan, while there is still something to be done about it.

Whipping a meringue 40 recipes

Bowl and whisk are clean and dry with no trace of fat or yolk. Grease prevents the foam outright, and there is no recovering a bowl that had it partway through.
The sugar went in gradually once the whites were already foaming, rather than all at once at the start.
No grit: a little rubbed between finger and thumb feels smooth, so the sugar has dissolved into the foam rather than sitting in it.
Stiff peaks means the tip stands with a slight bow when the whisk lifts, and the bowl can be tipped without the mass moving in it.
Glossy and smooth rather than chalky or dull, with no liquid gathering underneath it in the bowl.

Where it goes wrong It was whipped past stiff peaks. A minute beyond glory the protein network tightens and tears, the foam turns grainy and matte, water weeps out beneath it, and folding that into anything gives a mixture that collapses on the way to the oven.

The bare simmer: holding liquid below the boil 183 recipes

The surface is read rather than assumed: bubbles break slowly in one or two places, or the surface merely shivers, and it does not reach a rolling boil at any point.
It was held there: the pot was watched and the heat adjusted rather than set once and left, and there is no tide mark up the pot wall from a boil-over.
The liquid stayed as clear as it should be: no clouding from agitation, and no fat churned into an emulsion through it.
Whatever is in the liquid is still intact: nothing shredded, broken up, or worried apart by movement.
The level is roughly where the elapsed time should have left it; a large drop is the evidence that it ran hotter than this while nobody was looking.

Where it goes wrong It was brought to a boil and then left on the same heat, so it churned for the whole cook: the liquid clouded, the fat emulsified into it, and the solids broke apart into the broth.

At the Table

The Pour: Moscato d’Asti
Also Right: Late-harvest Riesling
From the Taps: Witbier
Zero-Proof: Sparkling elderflower

Citrus desserts need a wine sweeter than they are, with acid enough to keep up: light, frothy, and low-proof wins.

Family notes

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Film school

This dish, cooked on camera Search films of Riskrem Technique: Whipping a meringueThe skill inside this recipe The cuisine, deeper Technique films from the Norwegian & Icelandic kitchen