Eat Portuguese Rice Pudding, Live to be 115-Years-Old

Maria de Jesus of Portugal turned 115 this week. She is considered to be Europe's oldest person. Maria raised six kids, the eldest being a mere 84-years-old. "De Jesus celebrated her birthday by eating her favourite Portuguese dessert, rice cake."

Read more about Maria de Jesus at AFP.com.

Portuguese rice pudding, aka arroz doce, is a traditional dessert in Portugal. The following recipe for arroz doce and beautiful photo are from Patrícia Furtado.

Arroz Doce

Ingredients:
1 cup short grain white rice
5 cups water
1 slice lemon peel
1 tablespoon butter
A pinch of salt
2 cups hot milk (preferably whole)
2 cups sugar
5 egg yolks
Cinnamon do garnish

Directions:
1. In a medium saucepan, bring water to a boil with the lemon peel, butter and pinch of salt.
2. Add the rice and let it simmer for about 20 minutes. Stir occasionally. When most of the water has evaporated, add the very hot milk. Simmer for 5 more minutes and add the sugar.
3. In a separate bowl, beat together the egg yolks and add a few spoonfuls of the rice mixture to temperate the egg yolks. Then add the now warm egg mixture to the saucepan and stir quickly until even.
4. Serve in a large dish or small shallow ramekins, and sprinkle with ground cinnamon to garnish.

--Spanno

Comments

[Bentoist on September 13, 2008 at 08:44 PM]

I don't know about the longevity benefits of that dish but it sure looks good in the picture. I really like how the cinnamon sprinkles on the pudding.

[[eatingclub] vancouver]

I love rice puddings and this one looks absolutely delicious.

[Stu on November 17, 2008 at 07:51 AM]

I love rice pudding too!

[Karen Anderson on January 06, 2010 at 11:44 AM]

I made this recipe today and altho the taste is wonderful, it just wouldn't thicken. I followed the recipe to a T so don't know what went wrong. The recipe calls for 5 cups of water and only one cup of rice...sounds like an awful lot of water. However, the water did evaporate so what could have gone wrong?

[Kay on January 08, 2011 at 10:24 AM]

It's not 5 cups of water people!!! Use only 2 cups water and I only use 1 1/2 cup of milk comes out great!

[Robin Borba Besotes on May 17, 2011 at 04:05 PM]

I actually made this EXACT recipe with 5 cups of water and 2 cups of milk (I used 1/2 & 1/2 to lower the carbs) and it came out perfect. Though did cook it a little longer than stated in the recipe, added a cinnamon stick to the water as it boiled along with a slice of lemon peel. Enjoy!!!