Serves 4
Preparation time: 1 hour 45 minutes
Ingredients:
300ml milk
300ml pouring cream
¼ cup caster sugar
1 vanilla bean pod
3 eggs
1 extra egg yolk
70g Arborio rice
4-6 pear halves (in syrup)
Butter or Nuttalex for greasing
Methods:
• Preheat oven to 1600C
• In a saucepan place the milk, cream, sugar, split vanilla pod and scraped out seeds
• Over a medium heat, stir until the sugar dissolves and it is luke warm
• Remove from the heat and let the pan sit for 15 minutes for the vanilla flavour to infuse the milk.
• Grease a 6-cup ovenproof dish and stand it in a large roasting tray
• Boil a large jug of water
• In a clean bowl add the 3 eggs and extra yolk and whisk together
• After the milk is infused, remove the vanilla pod and discard
• Whisk the eggs into the infused milk mixture
• Add the rice and stir it through
• Pour the rice, milk and eggs into the greased baking dish
• Pour enough boiling water into the roasting pan (not the milk mixture), until it comes half way up the side of the baking dish
• Bake for 15 minutes and then stir the rice up from the bottom and through the mixture
• Bake a further 15 minutes and restir the rice up from the bottom of the bowl
• Bake a further 30 minutes and then increase the temperature to 2200C
• When at this temperature, cook for a further 10 minutes or until golden
• Remove from the oven and let it stay in the water bath for a further 15 minutes before serving
• Serve topped with sliced pear.
• Warm the pear a little if you prefer, before adding it to the rice custard
