It has been a holiday tradition in my family for years to serve the Norwegian rice porridge called risengrynsgrøt during the holidays. It is a simple rice dinner pudding that my grandmother made using a double boiler and some long-grain white rice, water, milk, and salt. It is normally served during the winter months and for holidays.
It is one of those dishes that as a kid (and surprisingly long into young adulthood) I thought was something everyone ate during the holidays. Later in life I learned that it was a Norwegian tradition along with lefse, krumkake, rosettes, berlinerkranzer, and julekake.
Because I live in Minnesota, I can still get many of these items in grocery stores and bakeries, but of course they aren’t as good as my Grandmother’s. The rice porridge, however, was my favorite and I have started to make my own version.
I must admit that I do not prepare it exactly as my Grandmother did. The dinner porridge is not served sweet. Usually cinnamon, sugar, and an eye of butter are added by the person eating it after the rice is on the plate, so sweetness varies depending upon the person.
Several years back I was in Istanbul and had some Turkish rice pudding in a restaurant that tasted very close to the Norwegian rice pudding I was used to, and then a couple of years after that I ran into this recipe for Moroccan rice pudding in Food & Wine. I decided it had promise, so I tried it out.
Compared to the Norsk risengrynsgrøt, this one is sweeter. Norwegians also make a sweet rice porridge call riskrem, but I decided that this Moroccan recipe would be my take on rice pudding. The hot version my family prepared was fine, but I wanted a more versatile dessert instead.
Many countries and cultures have a tradition of rice pudding, and the Moroccan recipe with slight changes tasted very similar to the rice pudding of my childhood. I simply cut back the sugar to 1/2 cup or even 3/8 cup. I also liked the use of arborio rice instead of long-grain rice. It made it creamier and the rice grains held together better during the second boiling, so it was less mushy.
I don’t add the almonds or orange-flower water called for in the Food & Wine recipe, but I do sprinkle the dish with cinnamon or some fresh ground nutmeg. During the summer months, I will also add blackberries or raspberries instead of cinnamon.
Regardless, of your holiday traditions, this rice pudding is a great recipe to try out, but I do recommend reducing the sugar and trying it with cinnamon. And now this has become my holiday rice pudding; the same tradition but just a little bit different.
For a traditional risengrynsgrøt, here is a recipe you can try.
